32 Lower Grange Road, Cookstown, BT80 8RZ

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This is a rendered single-storey house with a doubled pitched roof, built in the early nineteenth century. It is long and rectangular in plan with a single-storey pitched return to the rear North. There is a single-storey pitched shed with a metal roof adjoining the West gable. There is a further single-storey metal shed to the West gable of this shed.

The front South elevation faces onto Grange Road. It has a central square-headed doorway. There are two windows to each side of the doorway with 1/1 timber sliding sash frames.
The side East elevation is gable ended. There are no openings to this elevation.
The rear North elevation has two small square-headed timber windows.

External walls are roughcast render. The roof is pitched with fibre cement slate. There are rendered chimneys at each gable end. The chimney to the centre has collapsed. Eaves are slightly overhanging with exposed rafter ends.

Returns:
The single-storey rear return has a square-headed window opening to the West. The roof is pitched and slated.
The single-storey random rubble shed has a corrugated metal-pitched roof.
The single-storey corrugated metal shed is painted. There are no openings visible to the sheds.

Setting:
The cottage is set directly onto Grange Road. There is a large sloping field to the rear.

Historical information

Building shown on site on the OS map of 1833-34, but not recorded in the first valuation of 1834 as it was below rateable value. In the valuation of 1858 the occupant is listed as a Thomas McCord, with Charles K. Colhoun the immediate lessor, and the rateable value a modest £1-10-0. The property remained in the hands of the McCord family until sometime between 1936 and 1956 (the valuers do not give an exact date), when it was acquired –or passed to- a Robert Matthews, who was still in residence in 1972.

The small projection to the north side of the house appears to be an addition. The early 20th century appearance of the roof -overhang, exposed rafter ends, asbestos tiles- indicates that any major changes to the property may have taken place around this time; however (characteristically for vernacular buildings in the Cookstown area), the valuations make no mention of any alterations.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/2A/6/38 OS map, Co. Tyrone sheet 38, with valuation
references, 1857-58
2 PRONI VAL/2B/6/6/24B Second valuation, Desertcreat parish, 1858
3 PRONI VAL/12B/37/21A Annual valuation revision book, Tullaghoge ED, 1860-63
4 PRONI VAL/12B/37/21B Annual valuation revision book, Tullaghoge ED, 1864-80
5 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5C Annual valuation revision book, Tullaghoge ED, 1881
6 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5D Annual valuation revision book, Tullaghoge ED, 1881-94
7 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5E Annual valuation revision book, Tullaghoge ED, 1895-1912
8 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5F Annual valuation revision book, Tullaghoge ED, 1913-29
9 PRONI VAL/3B/7/5 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Grange ED, 1935
10 PRONI VAL/3C/7/5 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Grange ED, 1936-57
11 PRONI VAL/4B/6/6 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Grange ED, 1957-72

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a well proportyioned nineteenth-century single storey vernacular house with a characteristic elongated linear plan form which retains its rural setting. It has a ‘hearth lobby’ arrangement and is an an increasingly rare example of the type. The building's character has been degraded by the loss of a chimney and the replacement fibre cement slates.