31-33 Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8NX

31-33 Molesworth Street, Cookstown

This is a three-storey terraced house built around 1872, constructed in sandstone ashlar with rendered ground floor. The building forms part of a long uniform terrace (numbers 19–53 Molesworth Street), built in stages between 1850 and 1880, which represents an important element of Cookstown's 19th-century built heritage and reflects the town's urbanization and growing prosperity during the Victorian era, much of which followed the arrival of the railway.

The building is rectangular in plan with a two-storey flat-roofed stepped return stretching to the rear south elevation. The north street elevation features a rendered ground floor with a shopfront to the right, protected by a roller shutter and set within a ceramic-tiled bay with an aluminium door and single-light aluminium windows either side. A painted render and timber signboard surmounts the shopfront. A square-headed doorway to the left is fitted with a replacement aluminium door with overlight. The upper two storeys are faced with ashlar sandstone. Windows throughout are flat-headed with 1/1 timber sliding sash windows of classical proportions, reducing in size to the upper levels. Banded rusticated sandstone quoins feature on the front elevation. The eaves have replacement uPVC gutters, the roof is natural slate with a shared brick chimney to the east.

The rear return has square-headed timber casement windows to the upper level and a single square-headed doorway to the ground level, obscured by a galvanised metal grill. A large galvanised steel staircase connects from the flat roof of the return to ground level of the rear southern face. To the rear stand irregular outbuildings: two-storey plain rendered structures with a single-storey lean-to addition, finished with metal roofs.

The building was originally developed by William Taggart as a single property with its neighbour to the west (now 27–29 Molesworth Street). It was initially occupied by Samuel Brown with a rateable value of £34–15–0. By 1882, residents included Charles Knox and Hamilton Tomb, the latter becoming sole occupant by around 1888. Following William Taggart's death in 1893, the lease passed to his representatives. The property subsequently housed tenants including Alexander Nelson (1899), A.W. Richardson (1908), and from 1912 housed Customs & Excise offices on the first floor. By 1936 it was recorded as containing a shop with dwelling overhead. In 1950 the upper floors reverted to office use, occupied by the National Assistance Board for Northern Ireland under the lease of Herbert Robinson. In 1958 Robinson let part of the first floor to Messrs W. & M. Given, who remained there until at least 1972.

The building makes a positive contribution to the group value of listed buildings in Molesworth Street and retains the three-storey street-fronted character typical of much of the street, despite being built over a 30-year period with multiple construction phases.