55 James Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8AE

55 James Street is a rendered terraced two-storey house and shop, built around 1833, forming part of a mixed row of mainly 19th-century buildings along the western side of James Street in the commercial centre of Cookstown. It was formerly used as a watchmakers and jewellers, and that history is directly reflected in its most striking architectural feature.

The building is rectangular in plan with walls finished in roughcast render. The roof is pitched and slated, with cast-iron rainwater goods. To the rear (west) there are two later extensions dating from around 1980: a long rectangular three-storey extension and a two-storey lean-to abutting it directly.

The principal interest lies in the front (east) elevation, which faces the street. At ground floor level there is a well-detailed shopfront with a recessed central doorway containing a glazed and panelled timber door with a rectangular overlight above. To each side of the doorway are large single-light shop windows set on rendered stall risers. Painted timber pilasters flank the shopfront and are surmounted by carved timber console brackets decorated with floral motifs, above which projects a carved timber cornice. A painted timber fascia runs above the shopfront, itself topped by a further projecting carved timber cornice with a carved dentilled course.

Above the shopfront sits the building's most dramatic and unusual feature: a decorative painted timber clock and surround. The surround takes the form of a triangular prism, with one face fixed to the wall so that two faces are exposed, each revealing a round clock with wrought iron fittings. Below the clock, a decorative painted male figure holds a clock in his hand and looks out over the doorway, the whole composition surrounded by decorative foliage. This feature served as a direct advertisement for the building's former use as a watchmakers and jewellers. The late Victorian character of the clock strongly suggests it was added by Andrew Charles, a watch and clockmaker who took the lease in 1885, subdivided the building, resided here, and appears to have carried out other works including, most likely, the installation of the present shopfront. At the upper levels, the front elevation has 1/1 timber sash windows set on cut-stone sills.

The rear extensions present a marked contrast. Both the three-storey rendered extension and the two-storey lean-to have replacement uPVC windows set on cut-stone sills, uPVC rainwater goods, and artificial slate roofing. The interruption to the roofline caused by the rear three-storey extension, and the alterations to the rear of the building more generally, detract from the original character of the property.

The site is shown as developed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34. Historical records suggest the building was originally part of a larger newly-built property held by a watch and clockmaker named Samuel Brown, recorded in the first valuation of around 1834–38 as measuring 30 feet by 27½ feet by 19 feet, with an outbuilding of 27½ by 15½ by 12 feet, rated at £9-16-0. By the second valuation of 1859 the building was in the possession of a Matthew Reid. Subsequent occupants recorded include James McClelland, a leather seller, in 1862; Edward Woods, a milliner and dressmaker, in 1877; and from 1885, Andrew Charles, watch and clockmaker, who subdivided the building to create this property and a smaller one to the north which became a post office. Charles himself lived in this property and from 1890 also occupied rooms above the post office. By 1899 he had amalgamated the two properties again. In 1924 a Thomas E. Elmes is recorded as occupant, and four years later the lease passed to George Black, watchmaker and jeweller, with whom the building appears to have remained until at least 1972.

As a modest building of simple proportions and late Georgian scale, 55 James Street contributes to the early 19th-century character of James Street. The survival of the decorative clock feature, together with the well-detailed shopfront and the building's documented commercial history, elevates its significance beyond its modest appearance and provides a tangible record of the changing circumstances of trade in Cookstown.