Drumard Hill, 46 Turnaface Road, Cookstown, Co Londonderry, BT80 9XF

Drumard Hill is a detached two-storey farmhouse built around 1840, set in a prominent position with a large yard and attendant outbuildings. The house is rectangular in plan with a single-storey lean-to return to the rear South elevation and a single-storey return to the West gable. It is well-proportioned with a simple formality that adds to its significance in the landscape. The building remains largely unaltered, with much of its interior layout and detailing surviving.

The external walls are roughcast render, partially eroded to reveal rubble stonework beneath, with flat brick arches to window heads and render bands to corners and at eaves level. The pitched roof is covered with natural slate, now partially fallen in. Two plain rendered chimneys are located at the apex of each gable.

The North front elevation is three bays in width. The ground floor has a central square-headed doorway flanked by two square-headed windows, now boarded up and covered with corrugated metal sheeting respectively. The first floor has three square-headed windows, two of which are now gone. The surviving window to the right is a 6/6 timber sliding sash with no panes. All windows are set on cut-stone sills.

The West gable elevation is partially obscured by the single-storey return and has two square-headed openings to the attic level. The rear South elevation features a boarded up square-headed opening to the ground floor and three square-headed 6/6 timber sash windows to the first floor, all set on cut-stone sills. The East gable elevation is partially obscured by foliage and has two square-headed openings to the attic level.

The single-storey lean-to to the rear of the house is two windows in width to the South elevation, with square-headed six-light timber casement windows. A square-headed timber sheeted door is located to the West, with a small single-light timber casement window to the East at high level. External walls are rubble stone and the roof is partially covered with natural slate, now partly fallen in.

The single-storey return to the West gable has two square-headed partially boarded up timber casement windows and two timber sheeted doors to the rear elevation. External walls are rubble stone with brick dressings to openings and the roof is pitched with natural slate. A small single-storey corrugated metal shed is attached to the West gable of this return.

The house is accessed off a laneway to the Northwest of Turnaface Road, with the entrance to the rear yard via a gateway to the Southeast. The gateway has two brick pillars with pyramidal cut-stone capping. The rear yard contains a mixture of two-storey and single-storey nineteenth-century outbuildings and sheds, with further modern sheds to the East.

Documentary evidence indicates that a previous building on or close to this site was occupied in the early 1830s by John Harkness and recorded as a 'not new' thatched dwelling. The present house was built by Robert Harkness sometime between 1832 and 1853, and is recorded in the valuers' New House book of 1856 as measuring 40 feet by 25 feet by 18 feet in height, with an addition of 17 feet by 8 feet by 6 feet, and associated offices. The property remained in the Harkness family until 1872, when James McCullagh is recorded as occupier. James was succeeded by Joseph McCullagh in 1873 and by Thomas McCullagh in 1875. Robert McCullagh was resident in 1925 and continued to occupy the property in 1957. The survival of this house with its attendant outbuildings and well-preserved setting is unusual and of some significance.