Woodend Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The houset faces north and is situated between the old road to Dunnamanagh and the new stretch of road from Strabane to Londonderry about two miles from Strabane. The roads are joined on the Strabane side by the short length of Spruce Road
A winding drive descends into the property from the entrance on the old or upper road.

A non-vernacular house with a formal plan. The house is one and a half storey with a roughcast and whitened finish and the roof is thatched between cement skews. Each gable rises to a chimneystack, that to the left (west) has one decorative pot and that to the right (east) has two similar pots. A further stack is set longitudinally above the dining room fireplace and has two pots. All pots have corbelled cappings and are fitted with spark arresters

The entrance is recessed in a gabled projecting porch with natural slate roof and plain bargeboard. At each side of the porch there is a vertically sliding window with plain sashes. Beyond these on either side there are canted bays with vertically sliding windows plain sashed at the sides and with vertical division in the central light. The single openings have narrow sills and the bays have sills of traditional depths. All of the sashes have small stops.

At the rear (south) a two-storey addition has a natural slate roof hipped where it joins the main building and with a rooflight set into the inner slope. The opposite gable on the south side is finished with a decorative bargeboard. A chimney on this gable is basically similar to those on the main house and has a single pot with spark arrester. A further single storey flat roofed kitchen block in the south-west re-entrant angle has modern fenestration and there is a pair of plain sashed windows on the east side of the two-storey block.

The rear of the main house is lighted by a 6/6 vertically sliding window and a plain sashed vertically sliding window to the west of the extensions. At the right (east) of the extensions there is a vertically sliding window with plain sashes on the main wall face

Historical information

A building matching the size and location of the present house is shown on the OS map of 1833. This building is recorded in the valuation of the same year as an old thatched house in good condition (quality letter ‘2C+’) occupied by a Francis Nesbit. The dimensions are noted as 75ft x 22 x 8½, with the dwelling and the accompanying single-storey thatched outbuildings rated at £3-15-0. No details regarding the building are supplied in the second valuation of 1858 other than the occupier- Thomas Hamilton, the lessor- the Marquess of Abercorn, and the rateable value- £4, however the valuer has added the comment ‘neat cottage’.

In 1871 a gate lodge* was added to the site [?to the north end], increasing the rateable value of the whole plot to £6-10-0. By 1873 this had almost doubled to £12, rising to £13 the following year, the valuers stating that the main house had been ‘several years improved’ (the return and the bays were probably added at this stage). In 1876 the lease of the property was taken up by a William Hamilton, who acquired the freehold from the Abercorn estate in 1889 and then sold it to a William Devine. Devine occupied the gate lodge, renting the main house to a Rev. Connolly from 1896. Rev. Connolly was still in residence in 1929.

The condition of the thatch was reported as being ‘good’ in 1992 and 1994. In the intervening period some repair work was carried out by thatcher Gerry Agnew.

*This gate lodge does not appear to be included in J.A.K. Dean’s 1994 ‘Gate Lodges of Ulster…’.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/6/5 OS map, County Tyrone sheet 5, with valuation
references, (1833-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/1B/640 First valuation, Leckpatrick (1833)
3. OS map, 1st revision 1855, Co. Londonderry sheet 5 (the building is unchanged on this map)
4 PRONI VAL/2A/6/5 Revised OS map, County Tyrone sheet 5, with valuation references, (1858)
5 PRONI VAL/2B/6/43B Second valuation, Leckpatrick (1858)
6 PRONI VAL/12B/42/5A-F Annual valuation revision books, Ballymagorry ED (1864-1929)

Secondary sources
1 EHS files

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

A one and a half storey roughcast house with thatched roof located about two miles north of Strabane. The projecting entrance porch is flanked on either side by a canted bay window. At the rear there is a two-story addition and a single-storey kitchen block.

The character of the original house has been altered by the addition of the porch and the flanking bay windows. Subsequently the two-storey extension at the rear was made to accommodate the living room with bedroom above and finally the single storey kitchen block was added. Care has been taken to restore original features in the main dwelling.The house is unusual in that it is a non-vernacular thatched survival. Thus it is a rare sub type of a rare type and whilst altered merits the B1 grade.