Tullylagan House, 40 Tullylagan Road, Cookstown, BT80 8UP

Tullylagan House is an early 19th century country house in a classical style, built in 1828 for Thomas Greer to the designs of Thomas Jackson, architect of Belfast. It was originally known as New Hamburg or Hamborough. The house stands in a rural area set back from the public road within its own extensive grounds, and is visible from the road. It is a significant work by one of the leading Irish architects of the period.

The main block is a two-storey, three-bay house with a single-storey wing, both raised above an exposed basement. The building's overall proportions have been altered by the unusual circumstance of the ground level immediately around the house having been deliberately lowered in the early 20th century, exposing the basement storey in a way that was never part of the original design. This transformation was carried out under the direction of Thomas MacGregor Greer, who had taken over the estate in 1898 and died in 1941. Despite this alteration, the individual elements of the design remain well proportioned.

Walling throughout is of coursed ashlar sandstone. The roofs are hipped, covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses, with a wide overhang carried on shaped modillion brackets with unusual flared circular projections at the ends. A lateral chimney stack runs the full width of the main ridge and carries twelve battered square rendered pots. Rainwater goods consist of moulded guttering and circular downpipes.

The principal, south-facing elevation is symmetrical, with a projecting central entrance bay. Plain two-storey pilasters mark the extremities of the main block above a plain projecting platband. Windows in the main wall are rectangular timber vertically hung sliding sash with horns, glazed six over six to the main floors, and three over six to the basement storey; one basement window sits behind the later stone steps leading to the front door. The projecting central entrance bay has coupled Doric pilasters to its extremities on each of the two main floors, surmounted by a Doric entablature and frieze. Each floor of this bay has a central sash window set in a shouldered moulded surround of battered Greek Revival type; the first-floor window is additionally surmounted by a plain frieze and moulded cornice. Each side wall of the projecting entrance bay has a sash window at first-floor level set in a moulded rectangular surround, flanked by coupled Doric pilasters, and a doorway at ground-floor level with an original rectangular twelve-panelled surround, also flanked by coupled pilasters. The west-facing doorway of this porch is the main entrance to the house, approached by a later exterior dog-leg stairway of snecked rock-faced sandstone that incorporates a full-depth segmental arched opening on its south face, surmounted by a blank stone shield. On the east side of the porch, the corresponding ground-floor doorway now stands in elevated isolation following the lowering of the original ground level.

The west elevation of the main block is of similar materials and character to the south front, with matching pilasters at the extremities. It has one first-floor sash window, with a door and fanlight in place of the ground-floor window below it, opening onto a large modern balcony along the front of the wing. The balcony is carried on four circular cast iron piers, bounded by a modern balustraded parapet, and is timber-sheeted to its exposed underside. A rectangular timber door sits in the basement storey beneath the balcony. Originally there were two first-floor windows in the main block on this elevation, but the left-hand one has been so neatly blocked up as to leave no apparent trace.

The wing projects forward from the west elevation and is of two storeys, of similar materials but plainer character than the main block. Its south front walling matches the main block, while the west and north sides are of snecked masonry. It has sash windows in all three elevations of similar detailing to those of the main block. The basement of the south side also contains a small bull's-eye window at low level and a neatly blocked-up rectangular doorway. The north side has a doorway with a rectangular timber panelled door; fixed to the wall alongside it is an old iron cow-tail pump.

The north elevation of the main block reads as three storeys, of similar materials and character to the south front, with giant pilasters to the extremities and modillion brackets to the eaves. It is four windows wide at all floors, with sash windows as previously described. The east elevation is of similar character and detailing to the north, but is only two windows wide at each storey, with a doorway in place of one of the basement windows on the right-hand side; this has small-paned glazing and a small-paned fanlight.

Internally, the house is replete with ornamental features appropriate to its classical style, including elaborate plasterwork.

The house is approached by a long driveway from the west, without a formal gateway at that point. A second drive, shared with a hotel built within the grounds adjacent to the original outbuildings, has a new formal main entrance gateway comprising ironwork gates set in sandstone piers flanked by curved screen walls. At an intermediate point on the hotel driveway stands another set of smaller original stone piers without gates, incorporating a pedestrian side gate. There is also a small gateway of original chamfered piers with ironwork gates, now standing isolated in the grounds beside the western driveway. The grounds are laid out as parkland with mature trees and rolling lawns near the house. Within the lawns are a few old garden features including steps and retaining walls with ball finials. Immediately around the house are gravelled paths extending to a sizeable parking area in front of the main entrance. Adjacent to the rear of the house is a single-storey outbuilding that was under construction at the time of listing. Now incorporated within the estate, though presumably originally outside it, is the old twin-arched Tullylagan Bridge, of masonry construction but much repaired in concrete; it no longer carries the public road, which has been moved to a modern bridge further to the south. The outbuildings to the north have been largely replaced or absorbed by the modern hotel.

In 1904, Thomas MacGregor Greer commissioned Alfred Henry Hart and Percy Leslie Waterhouse to design an entirely new house at Tullylagan in a neo-Tudor Cotswold English style. Plans were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1905, but the proposed new house was never built. Instead, the existing house was enlarged and remodelled by lowering the ground level around the building so that the basement became the new ground floor, necessitating the construction of an exterior flight of steps to the front entrance. During Thomas MacGregor Greer's tenure at Tullylagan, the estate lands were used in the 1930s for trials of tractors developed by Harry Ferguson, the mechanic who pioneered and invented this form of vehicle.