62 James Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8LT

62 James Street is a Grade B2 listed terraced house of considerable importance to early nineteenth-century Cookstown. Built around 1838, it represents a significant element of the town's architectural heritage from this period and has strong group value with adjacent buildings of the same era.

The building is a rectangular two-storey structure with a two-storey pitched and flat-roofed return to the rear on the north side. It now functions as two apartments, having been converted from its original use as a single dwelling. The external walls are rendered throughout.

The front elevation, which faces directly onto James Street to the west, displays the building's principal architectural quality and special interest. The ground floor features a centrally positioned doorway with a square head and panelled timber door, surmounted by coloured glass and leaded overlight. A projecting carved shouldered surround frames the door, with a projecting carved timber cornice above. Flanking the doorway are canted bay windows containing segmental-headed windows with chamfered surrounds. The windows are 1/1 timber sash frames set upon a continuous carved stone sill, each bay topped with a projecting cornice. The upper storey contains tripartite 1/1 timber sliding sash windows with painted cut stone sills.

The east rear elevation is finished in dry dash render and displays a variety of square-headed timber casement windows and doors, with a metal external stair providing access from the first floor to the rear yard. The main roof is covered in natural slate with a brick chimney featuring profiled stepped capping. Cast iron rainwater goods serve the principal block.

The rear return section is pitched to the south with a flat-roofed bay to the north. This area features an assortment of timber casement and uPVC windows and doors, with dry dash render to the external walls, artificial slate to the roofs, and uPVC rainwater goods.

Documentary evidence shows the property appears on valuation plans from around 1838. The 1835 valuation records it as a relatively old dwelling rated at £13-9-8, occupied by John Sterret with a rent of £24. The structure included offices and outbuildings, with dimensions recorded as the main house 45½ feet by 20 by 17 feet, with an upper part 19 by 20 by 8 feet, and offices measuring 37 by 20 by 15 feet, 29 by 17½ by 15 feet, and 28½ by 19 by 8½ feet (the latter thatched). The rateable value had reduced to £11-4-0 by the circa 1838 valuation modification.

The property subsequently passed through several owners and occupants. By 1859, James Cluff held the house directly from the Gunning-Moore estate, with the rateable value increased to £30. He transferred it to his son Richard in 1862. Richard vacated in 1879, leasing to William Craig, who by 1883 occupied it jointly with John Sinclair. In 1890 James McVeigh acquired the lease, and evidence suggests he was responsible for the addition of the distinctive canted bays to the front elevation. The building had been recently "improved" according to valuers' notes of 1899, which also document a rear projecting section measuring 16 feet by 24 by 21 feet as a recent "addition" to the south side of the return.

Margaret McVeigh became leaseholder and occupant between circa 1930 and circa 1935, with Alice McVeigh recorded as tenant in 1937. By 1939 the lease had passed to Mrs Bowlly, Mrs Trench, and Mrs Hyde-Smyth. Alice M. Evans is recorded as occupant in 1969.

The building is significant both for its architectural proportions and detailing, and for its documented local historical interest as a substantial property from Cookstown's formative commercial period.