36a and 36b Oldtown Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8EF

Terraced house, built around 1870, at 36a and 36b Oldtown Street, Cookstown, County Tyrone. This is a well-composed example of a modest Victorian town house that, while it adds interest to the streetscape, survives as a facade only, with insufficient historic fabric remaining to merit listing.

The building is two-and-a-half storeys tall with a single-storey basement, roughly rectangular in plan, and with a three-storey lean-to return to the rear. External walls are of hammer-dressed regular-coursed sandstone. The building is set back from Oldtown Street behind a low rendered wall with cast-iron railings.

The front east elevation faces onto Oldtown Street. To the right of the ground floor is a recessed segmental-headed doorway with a timber-and-glazed door and an overlight above. To the left of the ground floor is a square-headed window with 6-over-6 timber casement frames. The upper floors repeat the 6-over-6 window arrangement with matching dressings. All windows have cut-stone sills and timber lintel insets. Replacement concrete steps with painted wrought-iron railings lead down to basement level. At basement level there is a timber casement window to the left of the ground floor and a square-headed doorway to the right, also fitted with a glazed and timber door, positioned directly below the main entrance. A continuous stone plinth runs at sill level.

The rear elevation features an assortment of timber casement windows, all with cut-stone sills. A door is visible at second-floor level, and a metal fire escape staircase connects the ground and upper floors. The rear external walls are of hammer-dressed regular-coursed sandstone with render to the basement, and the rear elevation is finished in unpainted dry-dash render. The roof is covered in artificial slate with cast-iron rainwater goods. A brick chimney with a profiled stepped capping stands to the south.

The three-storey lean-to return to the rear west has an assortment of square-headed timber casement windows and a slate roof. Much of the return is obscured by the metal fire escape staircase.

The site has a well-documented history. It is shown as already developed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34. The first valuation of 1835 records three old thatched dwellings on the plot: a single-storey dwelling to the north (exempt from valuation on account of its modest size), a two-storey building of similar footprint in the centre, and a larger two-storey building to the south. These were occupied respectively by Hugh Mullen, Thomas Bell, and Robert Dunseith. By the 1859 valuation all three dwellings were still standing, now occupied by Mary Ridell to the north, Thomas Bell still in the middle property, and Joseph Ferguson to the south, with a William Paul as immediate lessor of all three. In 1870, Mr Paul demolished all three and replaced them with the buildings that stand today.

This particular house was first occupied by an Eliza Wilson. A succession of tenants followed: James McCloud in 1876, John O'Neill in 1877, Thomas McGlade in 1878, and John Galway in 1880, by which point Thomas Paul — identified in contemporary directories as a yarn merchant — had taken over the lease. James Mullen is recorded as occupant in 1884, then Joseph Reynolds in 1885, the same year that John A. Fleming, a rising local businessman and later owner of the Loughry estate, took over the lease of this property and its two matching neighbours to the south. John Cassidy took up residence in 1899, followed by Philip Kelly in 1902, William Blythe in 1903, and a Miss Harris in 1904. This was probably Miss Mary Harris, who appears later to have married and become Mary L. Lewis, and who took over the lease of this and the two neighbouring properties to the south in 1908. William Gough is noted as resident in 1924, Archie Patterson in 1926, and Bridget Donaghy in 1928. By 1936 Ernest Thompson was the occupant, with James Coulter as immediate lessor. The lease passed to Robert Coulter in 1940, and Mr Thompson was still recorded as resident as late as 1972.