Lissan Rectory, 150 Moneymore Road, Cookstown, BT80 9UU

Lissan Rectory is an early 19th century Italianate villa designed by the prominent architect John Nash, built in 1807 for the Reverend John Staples at a total cost of £1,313 14 shillings and 5 pence. Of this sum, £100 was a gift, £650 was a loan from the Board of First Fruits, and the remainder came from Staples himself. Reverend Staples was the son of a local squire, the Right Honourable John Staples MP of Lissan House, who had served as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and was a cousin of William Stewart MP of Killymoon Castle, another building designed by Nash in 1802.

The house stands in a rural setting, approached by a long driveway from a modern gateway, and is set well back from the public road within its own grounds. Originally it was laid out within its own miniature parkland. The main entrance faces north, away from the public road. Lawns on the north and east sides are bounded by rubble stone walls, with fields beyond on the north and west. The grounds contain a number of mature trees, shrubs and bushes.

Stylistically, the building belongs to the same tradition as Nash's Cronkhill in Shropshire (c.1802) and Sandridge (1805), two English houses by the same architect. Sir John Summerson, one of the great architectural historians of the last century, wrote that it was Nash who, under the influence of the Picturesque landscaping movement of the late 18th century, introduced the Italian type of villa — a type intended to evoke the atmosphere of Claude's landscapes — exemplified by both Lissan Rectory and Cronkhill. He described Lissan as "an important house of its period, significant to the whole story of British architecture." Professor M. Jope, writing in 1956, observed that the house is "a variant on the same theme of Italianate villa elements as used by Nash at Cronkhill and, though combined a little less skilfully, is a pleasing house to find set in this mid-Ulster countryside." He noted that the entrance passes through a large four-centred arch under the square tower which acts as a porch, that the loggia faces south only, and that the round tower with its low-pitched conical roof, wide eaves and oval windows — so significant at Cronkhill through its grouping in the central mass — is at Lissan "rather lost to the composition by being relegated to the far end of the long kitchen wing." The plan and elevations of the rectory are reportedly recorded in George Repton's notebook held in the RIBA collection, and an original plan by the Nash office, published by M. Mansbridge in 1991, shows a kitchen court to the north of the house closed on the north side by a rectangular building with a wide recessed porch.

The building is two storeys, with roughcast rendered walls and a combination of hipped and gabled slated roofs. The north elevation, which contains the main entrance, is asymmetrical. It comprises a flat-roofed square entrance tower of two storeys plus an attic, flanked on the left by a two-bay, two-storey set-back section, and on the right by a two-storey two-bay wing with the outer bay gabled. A modern flat-roofed single-storey garage extends further to the right. The pitched roofs are slated and rise to a flat-roofed top. A moulded stone cornice runs around the tower. Rainwater goods are mainly cast iron, though some sections have been replaced in uPVC.

The windows in the set-back to the left of the tower are semi-circular headed timber sliding sashes — six over six on the ground floor and six over two on the first floor — without horns, with radial lights to the head and exposed sash boxes, all set in semi-circular headed openings. The windows in the wing to the right are similar, except for one on the first floor next to the tower, which is two over two with curved Y-tracery lights to the head.

The tower contains an open porch at ground floor level, entered through a large semi-circular stilted stone archway. The porch has rendered walls, a plain plastered ceiling and a stone flagged floor. The main entrance door, set at the rear of the porch, is a rectangular timber eight-panelled door surmounted by a blind tympanum panel, all set in a moulded surround. Above the porch at first floor level is a sashed window similar to those in the set-back. At attic level is a triplet of small rectangular timber vertically hung sliding sash windows, two over two, without horns and with exposed sash boxes, set in a wide rectangular opening. On the ground floor of the exposed east face of the tower is a narrow round-headed window, also similar in type but sashed four over four with curved Y-tracery lights to the head.

The garage is entirely modern in character, with a timber fascia board, a rectangular flush timber door and a wide rectangular vehicular door.

The east elevation is of roughcast with a pitched slated roof, lined and blocked, and contains a smooth cement-rendered chimney with one pot. At first floor level at the left-hand extremity, in the screen wall of the south front verandah, is one small rectangular window opening containing unglazed lozenge-pattern wooden glazing bars.

The south elevation is also asymmetrical. To the left is the two-storey gable carried through from the north elevation. To the right, a two-storey wing recedes behind an open ground floor arcade and an open balcony above. The walling of the gable is roughcast, as is the return extremity of the wing to the right, while the recessed walls of the wing are of smooth render painted white. Roofs are slated with plain timber bargeboards. Rainwater goods here are uPVC.

The gable contains a triplet of large semi-circular headed windows at ground floor level, similar to those on the north elevation, and a single smaller window at first floor level. The arcade consists of six semi-circular arches of ashlar sandstone, carried on monolithic square sandstone piers that are stop-chamfered to form octagonal shafts, set on square sandstone bases, all standing on a sandstone plinth. The loggia formed by this arcade has a flat plain plastered ceiling. Behind the arcade at ground floor level, the recessed wall of the wing contains three sets of double doors — glazed and panelled, with radial lights to semi-circular fanlights — all set in fluted surrounds, along with one semi-circular headed sashed window similar to those in the gable. At first floor level the wing contains two semi-circular headed sashed windows similar to those in the gable, and a set of glazed and panelled double doors with a radial fanlight, which leads out onto the balcony. The balcony is fronted by modern steel railings. Three flush rooflights are incorporated in the slated roof, which sweeps down from the main block over the balcony. This balcony roof was erected in the post-war era, and its railings are new, dating from around 2007.

The west elevation is of roughcast and contains two smooth-rendered chimneys with a mixture of old and new pots. The wall has one semi-circular sashed window, three over three with radial lights, and one modern rectangular timber window comprising a fixed light and an opening top vent. The garage projecting from this wall contains three windows of modern type.

The house has suffered a number of losses and alterations. A west wing that terminated in a circular tower — the feature that most closely linked Lissan to Cronkhill, where a similar round tower with a low-pitched conical roof, wide eaves and oval windows formed a key part of the composition — has been demolished. Jope noted as early as 1956 that the round tower was already neglected at that time. All original chimney pieces have reportedly been removed, though the one in the front porch may be original. Other original interior features such as plasterwork details have also been lost. The pyramidal roof to the tower has been removed, and the balcony above the loggia and its covering roof are modern additions.

To the north of the house stands a two-storey rectangular outbuilding, built of rubble stonework rendered to the front and sides, with a hipped slated roof. Its entrance front has a large segmental arched recess flanked by modernised rectangular windows. This building is thought to be contemporary with the main house and, given its correspondence with the kitchen court building shown on the Nash office plan published in 1991, is attributable to Nash. Its interiors do not appear to contain anything of architectural significance. To the rear of that outbuilding is a large modern corrugated metal farm shed.