45 Molesworth Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This is a three-storey sandstone end of terrace former house, built c. 1878. The property contains a shop to ground floor. 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. It is rectangular in plan with a two-storey lean-to roofed return to the left of the rear elevation, and two-storey pitched return to right of rear elevation. The overall house backs onto a rear service yard.
Walls to this building are the original ashlar sandstone with banded rusticated sandstone quoins to front elevation.

The North elevation is street fronted. The ground floor contains a shopfront to the West and a doorway to the East. The panelled doorway has an overlight and is surmounted by a carved stone lintel. There are splayed rusticated quoins to door surround.
The shopfront is composed of a glazed and panelled timber doorway, with an overlight, and is located slightly off-centre. The doorway is flanked by large double light shop window to the left, and a single light window to the right. Both windows are set on rendered stall risers. There are panelled pilasters to each side of the shopfront, which are surmounted by decorative carved floral scrolled console brackets with a carved timber cornice and a painted timber signboard.

The upper levels contain 1/1 timber sliding sash windows with carved chamfered stone surrounds, and painted cut stone sills. The Classical proportions reduce to the upper levels.

The side West elevation is gable ended to the left. The side of the rear return is located to the right. The gable is blank, and has a centrally positioned painted and rendered profiled chimney set to the ridge line of the main terrace building. The return has a square headed timber light window with a glazed and panelled door, located together to resemble a shopfront. There is a grill to the window and door, surmounted by a metal signboard grid structure with external projecting lights. A brick chimney with clay pots is located at the centre point of the return at roof level.

The rear South elevation is rendered with 2/2 timber sliding sash windows with metal grills visible to the upper level.

There is natural slate to the roof, with a painted and rendered chimney. There are painted cast-iron rainwater goods to the North elevation, and replacement aluminium to South elevation.

West Return:
The rear South elevation of the left rear return comprises a central semi-circular headed archway to the centre, with wrought-iron gates. There is a single square headed timber sash window to the left and a casement window to the right. The lean-to roof is sloping upwards from East to West. There are slates to rear return with a simple brick chimney.

East return:
There are 2/2 timber sliding sash windows to the East pitched roof return.

Setting:
The rear service yard is surrounded by a random rubble stone boundary wall to the ground level, with a corrugated iron boundary surround which stretches up beyond the height of the first floor. The building is set in North East of the town centre as part of a uniform and near matching three-storey terrace.

Historical information

No.45 and its matching neighbour to the East (present nos.47-49, HB09/13/017O) were built in 1878 on a plot acquired by a John McIlhatton. No.45 was originally occupied by an Arthur McIlhatton, and its original rateable value £34-15-0. A Thomas Douglas took up the tenancy in 1881, with a John Quinn taking over the lease in 1882. Robert Dickson is noted as the tenant in 1883 and took over the lease himself in 1890. Robert Dickson appears to have died in 1899, the property remaining in the hands of his ‘representatives’ until 1914, when a Margaret Dickson is recorded as leaseholder / occupant.

In 1954 the building was divided into three properties, with a shop on the ground floor (run by Herbert and Harriett Devlin), offices on the first floor and ground floor occupied by Cyrus and Irene Brown (who had acquired the lease of the whole building), and an office to the first floor, in the hands of the NI Ministry of Home Affairs. The property is recorded as vacant in 1960, remaining so (according to the valuation book), up until at least 1972.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/2D/6/3/1-2 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1859-82 [2 sheets]
2 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5C Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1868-81
3 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5D Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1881
4 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5E Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1881
5 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5F Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1882-90
6 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5G Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1882-88
7 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.]
8 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5H Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1895-99
9 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5K Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1889-99
10 PRONI VAL/12E/171/1/1-2 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1892-97 [2 sheets]
11 PRONI OS/33/1/1-5 OS plan of Cookstown, 1895 [5 sheets]
12 PRONI OS/9/10/2/1-2 OS plan of Cookstown, index map, 1895 [2 sheets]
13 PRONI OS/9/10/3/1-5 OS plan of Cookstown, 1895 [5 sheets]
14 PRONI VAL/12E/171/2/1-3 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1897-1910 [3 sheets]
15 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7A Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1901-07
16 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7B Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1909-15
17 PRONI OS/33/2/1-4 OS plan, 1909 & 1918 [4 sheets]
18 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7C Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1916-29
19 PRONI VAL/3G/142/1 /1-4 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1936-37 [4 sheets]
20 PRONI VAL/3C/7/8 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban, 1936-57
21 PRONI VAL/3G/142/2/1-4 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1937-51
22 PRONI VAL/4B/6/10 Second general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban vol.1, 1956-72
23 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
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A well proportioned and detailed building representing an important element of the nineteenth-century architectural legacy of Cookstown. The former house exhibits high quality ashlar sandstone external walls.

Additional merit is given in terms of its group value with the adjacent no.47 and 49 (HB09/13/017O), suggesting it was a continuing development. When viewed simultaneously, they reveal a single symmetrical composition, with the adjacent coach arch at the centre. Together it creates an impressive composition. The front elevation is largely unchanged. It also has group value with the other listed buildings in Molesworth Street.

Its location in Molesworth Street is a sign of the urbanization and increasing prosperity of Cookstown in the Victorian era. Much of this was of course due to the arrival of the railways.

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.