128 Ardboe Road, Cookstown, BT80 0HU

A detached two-storey three-bay symmetrical house with a two-storey return, built around 1910-1913. The house is a fair example of early twentieth-century domestic architecture, well proportioned with interesting architectural detail.

The south-facing front elevation is rendered in pebbledash with cut-stone quoins and features a central wide elliptical-headed doorway. The door is panelled timber with fanlight and sidelights, surrounded by a moulded frame including fluted pilasters and a keystone motif. The doorway is flanked by a pair of canted bay windows with parapet roofs finished in cut-stone cornice detailing. Windows to the bays are one-over-one timber sash with masonry sills and smooth render surrounds. The central window is segmental-headed, while the side windows are semi-circular headed. Above the doorway is a pair of semi-circular headed windows. Above the bays are two segmental-headed windows. A string course marks the sill level of the upper floor. The eclectic combination of round, elliptical and segmental-headed openings gives the façade particular character.

The west gable elevation is pebbledash with no openings and a rendered chimney at the apex. The side of the return is visible on this elevation, rendered throughout with a variety of square-headed openings including a timber tongue and groove door, two one-over-one timber sash windows and a small timber casement window. The rear north elevation has the return projecting from it, with various segmental-headed one-over-one timber sash windows. The gable of the return, visible on this elevation, contains a single replacement timber window. The east side elevation comprises the main house gable and the side of the return, with two segmental-headed windows to the gable and four square-headed windows, all with cut-stone surrounds. A rendered chimney rises to the apex of the gable, with cut-stone quoins to the gable and corner of the return (though those on the return do not turn the corner to the rear).

External walls throughout are pebbledash. The pitched roof is covered in artificial slate, with rendered chimneys at each end of the main ridge and one at the centre of the return, each carrying four clay pots. Rainwater goods are aluminium.

To the rear of the house is a yard containing a single-storey former house, possibly dating from the early twentieth century, built of rubble and brick with rendered finish and a pitched roof of partially slate and partially corrugated asbestos. The openings are square-headed and mostly boarded up; some have been enlarged with metal-framed windows added. It is in poor condition. Adjacent is a later two-storey stone farm building with coursed rubble walls, red brick detailing and a pitched slate roof, also in poor condition but retaining doors and windows.

The house is set back from the road with a large front garden. Mature trees border the property, and the lane approaches via elaborate gates with square rendered piers decorated with floral patterns, curved side walls and decorative cast-iron gates. Hedges edge the paths around the house. The outbuilding and former house trace the economic development of the owners and add to the interest of the site.

According to valuations, the house was built in 1912-13 by John Devlin and remained in the hands of the Devlin family until at least 1957.