25 Molesworth Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This is a three-storey brick building, former house, built c. 1873. The building contains a café / shop to the ground floor, c. 1990, and an integral coach arch, and accommodation above. The building is rectangular in plan, with a stepped two-storey return to the rear South elevation. A two-storey modern building abuts the return, creating a courtyard enclosure with the adjacent no. 21 - 23 (HB09/13/017B).

The building forms part of a long row of mixed three-storey buildings, built in stages between 1850 – 80, now largely converted to shops, pubs and offices.

The North elevation is street fronted. It contains a shopfront to the left of the ground floor, a doorway to the centre, and a square headed coach arch to the right. The ground floor is clad in ceramic tiles, with brick to upper levels.

The shopfront is partially late Victorian and partially modern with three ceramic tiled pilasters surmounted by original console brackets. The shopfront is modern; this is formed in powder coated aluminium and is set on on a ceramic tiled raised plinth. There is an integral glazed door to the left. A modern signboard placed above the shop window under a projecting cornice that matches the brackets, creating separation between the ground floor shopfront and the upper levels.

The main panelled and glazed door to the right is also formed in powder coated aluminium and is surmounted by an overlight.

Painted cement render to reveals of coach arch and painted timber soffit. Evidence of an existing door blocked up with painted brick within the coach arch.

The upper levels have Flemish bond brickwork to walls. Windows are flat headed with central carved keystone lintel with decorative floral relief within. There are splayed brick to the window reveals, with 1/1 timber sliding sash window frames with horns and cut stone lintels. Classical proportions of windows reduce to the upper levels.

There are cast iron gutters, a fiber cement slate roof with corbelled brick chimney to right and simple brick chimney to left.

The rendered rear South elevation is composed of an irregular arrangement of square headed door and window openings, with timber casement windows and doors, and painted concrete sills. A large painted metal fire escape stair and railings, c. 1990, stretch from ground floor to second floor between properties no. 23 and 25.

Return:
A two-storey hipped and pitched roofed rear return, c. 1960, has a cement render finish. It also comprises an irregular array of several square headed uPVC replacement windows. A staircase with painted wrought-iron railings is located at the step of the return, leading to the former courthouse, now in use as a night club. Wrought-irons grills cover some windows of the return, with further painted aluminium roller shutters and integral hood attachments to doors.
Artificial slate to roof of return with a single cement rendered profiled chimney.

Setting:
The building is set in North East of the town centre as part of a uniform and matching three-storey terrace.

Historical information

The present no.25 was built in 1873 as an addition to the existing dwelling to the west (present nos.21 and 23, HB09/13/017B) itself built in 1861 by a William S. Crawford. In 1889, the ground floor level of this addition, was leased as a separate property (a shop, with a rateable value of £6-10-0), firstly to a Joseph Burnett (who appears to have been a butcher), and then, in 1893, to a Charles Rankin.

Joseph C. Crawford took over both the tenancy and the lease of the whole property (present nos.21-25), which by this stage also included pub, in 1894. In 1907 the lease of the pub was acquired by Edward Allen and a James McGuckin became the tenant. Crawford held on to the lease of the shop, however, which is noted as occupied by James McCulla in 1905 and Joseph Donnelly in 1907. In 1909, James McGuckin acquired the lease and sublet the living quarters (which appear to have included the upper floors of no.25) and rear garden to a George R. Bear.

In c.1924 a radical reorganisation of the property was carried out with no.21 emerging as a single entity, and nos.23-25 subdivided into multiple properties. These are noted by the valuers in that year as consisting of ‘a shop and room’, ‘2 rooms first floor front left’, ‘2 rooms first floor front right’, ‘room first floor (in rere)’, ‘2 rooms second floor left’, ‘2 rooms second floor right’ and a ‘garage (at rear)’.

By 1936 no.25 is recorded as a separate property from no.23.containing five properties, one of them a shop occupied by a Eugene Pellegrine, the others first and second floor offices rooms rented by, amongst others, the Pearl Assurance Co. The lease of the whole of no.25 was in the hands of a Robert Quinn by 1952, with the first floor rooms rented to a Margaret Cormac. This division into five properties was still extant in 1972, with amongst other things, a hairdressers occupying the first floor.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/2C/63 Second valuation, Union of Cookstown (Dublin, 1859) [This is the printed version of the second valuation. The handwritten version (which may have been more detailed and include property dimensions etc.) no longer exists. The printed volume merely provides names of tenants and leaseholders, and rateable values.]
2 PRONI VAL/2D/6/3/1-2 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1859-82 [2 sheets]
3 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5A Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1860-63
4 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5B Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1864-68
5 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5C Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1868-81
6 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5D Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1881
7 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5E Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1881
8 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5F Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1882-90
9 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5G Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1882-88
10 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5J Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1889-94 [The reference number for this book is out of sequence in the
PRONI catalogue- the dates it covers are actually earlier than VAL/12B/37/5H.]
11 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5H Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1895-99
12 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5K Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1889-99
13 PRONI VAL/12E/171/1/1-2 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1892-97 [2 sheets]
14 PRONI OS/33/1/1-5 OS plan of Cookstown, 1895 [5 sheets]
15 PRONI OS/9/10/2/1-2 OS plan of Cookstown, index map, 1895 [2 sheets]
16 PRONI OS/9/10/3/1-5 OS plan of Cookstown, 1895 [5 sheets]
17 PRONI VAL/12E/171/2/1-3 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1897-1910 [3 sheets]
18 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7A Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1901-07
19 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7B Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1909-15
20 PRONI OS/33/2/1-4 OS plan, 1909 & 1918 [4 sheets]
21 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7C Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1916-29
22 PRONI VAL/3G/142/1 /1-4 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1936-37 [4 sheets]
23 PRONI VAL/3C/7/8 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban, 1936-57
24 PRONI VAL/3G/142/2/1-4 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1937-51
25 PRONI VAL/4B/6/10 Second general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban vol.1, 1956-72
26 PRONI VAL/4B/6/11 Second general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban vol.2E, 1956-72

Secondary sources
1 Oram, R.W. and Rankin, P.J., Historic buildings…Dungannon & Cookstown (Belfast, UAHS, 1971)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a quite large former terraced house that is an important element of the nineteenth-century built heritage of Cookstown. Its location in Molesworth Street reveals the urbanization and increasing prosperity of Cookstown in the Victorin era. Much of this was of course due to the arrival of the railway.

Its primary interest lies in its exterior proportion and style and its group value with the adjoining terraced buildings. The building is somewhat unusual in that it is constructed in clay facing brick, not a common material in this location at that time.

The terrace 19 - 53 Molesworth Street was built during a thirty year period; despite this time period and the fact that it was built in many stages it has maintained a remarkable uniformity.