27 Ardcumber Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 9AQ

27 Ardcumber Road is a well-proportioned and detailed picturesque early nineteenth-century farmhouse built around 1830. It displays characteristic vernacular origins, evidenced by its elongated linear plan form. As a complete group with its outbuildings, it now represents an increasingly rare example of this building type.

The main house is a two-storey structure with a pitched slate roof and a single rendered chimney located slightly off centre. It is largely rectangular in plan with a single-storey flat-roofed entrance porch to the front elevation. A single-storey pitched addition with a corrugated metal roof extends to the south, behind which sits a further two-storey flat-roofed extension. The rear of the house opens onto a roughly rectangular yard.

The front elevation facing Ardcumber Road features square-headed timber sliding sash windows with 6/6 glazing bars to the ground floor and 3/6 to the first floor, all set on painted cut-stone sills. The entrance porch has a flat roof and is furnished with a square-headed panelled and glazed timber door. The north side elevation contains a single square-headed ground floor window. The rear west elevation displays an assortment of square-headed timber windows. External walls are finished in painted roughcast render to the front elevation and south, with plain render to the south side and rear. Rainwater goods are replacement aluminium.

The single-storey metal-roofed southern addition has two 6/6 timber sliding sash windows to the front elevation and a rendered chimney to the gable. The south gable end is rendered with no openings. The rear west elevation contains a large timber casement window and a square-headed timber sheeted door. The projecting stone verge at the south end supports a corrugated metal roof.

The two-storey flat-roofed return section to the rear features timber casement windows and a projecting parapet to the roof, with a large rainwater tank mounted to its centre.

A single-storey pitched garage to the south boundary has a large square-headed garage door opening to the road elevation, a timber panelled and glazed door, two timber casement windows to the north side elevation, and a square-headed timber sheeted door. No openings exist to the south elevation. The roof is pitched with natural slate.

The outbuildings comprise a two-storey structure, possibly a barn, located to the rear of the yard, with an external staircase to its north side. Two single-storey pitched-roof sheds stand to the southwest, adjacent to this barn. All outbuildings feature a mixture of timber casement windows and sheeted timber doors, with natural slate pitched roofs.

The house stands directly onto Ardcumber Road, with a small grassy area to the front and a short path leading to the front door. A small painted wrought-iron gate stands to the north of the main house.

Historical Development

A building occupied this site on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34 but was not recorded in the first valuation of 1834 as it fell below rateable value. By the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1857, both the house and rear outbuilding appeared, and in the second valuation of 1858, the property was recorded as the home of Francis O'Neill, with John White as immediate lessor. White occupied the house by 1872, with Charles K. Colhoun listed as lessor. James Price became resident three years later, and the house remained with his family until sometime between 1929 and 1935, when it was acquired by Philip Treanor. Mrs. Mary J. Treanor held ownership in 1972.

It is probable that this house began life as a lower structure, possibly wholly single-storey, and like many vernacular houses in the area, it likely assumed its present form in the later nineteenth or early twentieth century. The style of the window frames suggests any substantial change may have occurred at an earlier date, possibly around the 1860s, though the valuations provide no direct comment on this matter.