40 John Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An attached three-bay two-storey stone former sexton’s house with Picturesque detailing, built 1873, located at the south side of John Street. L-plan, facing north; lower return to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof, blue/black clay ridge tiles, red brick chimneystacks, perforated painted timber bargeboards, replacement half-round uPVC gutters. Walling is squared-and-tooled undressed basalt with dressed sandstone quoins. Windows are bipartite depressed gothic painted timber 1/1 sashes, dressed sandstone surrounds.

Principal (north) elevation is symmetrical with a central entrance flanked by a single window to each floor and a blind sandstone trefoil over the entrance; first floor windows have wall-head gablets with bargeboards over. Door is segmental arch-headed replacement timber door in dressed sandstone surround with Gibbs-blocking; modern metal letters affixed over entrance.

East elevation is blank, except for a single square-headed painted timber 1/1 sash with a sandstone lintel to ground floor left end.

Rear (south) elevation is abutted to right end by return. Exposed section has roughcast walling, single square-headed painted timber 2/2 sash to each floor with gablet over first floor window.

Return gable is abutted by boiler projection (of no interest), exposed section is detailed as rear and has single square-headed timber casement to left end first floor; left cheek has single windows to first floor left end, single window to ground floor right end; right cheek is detailed as east elevation and has single window to first floor right end.

West elevation is entirely abutted by adjoining building.

Set to roadside, situated at a low-lying site with a high roughcast-rendered boundary wall enclosing a rear concrete-paved patio. The former sexton’s house abuts the Trinity Presbyterian Church Hall (HB11/11/07B) and is to the east of Trinity Presbyterian Church (HB11/11/07A).

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Basalt
Windows: Timber
RWG: uPVC

Historical information

The building is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1905-6.

Valuation Revisions first record the ‘house (under part)’ in the early 1860s valued at £2. The occupier is William M. Donnell and it is leased from the 2nd Presbyterian Meeting House Committee, however this is amended in 1872. The building was ‘rebuilt 1873’, as it was ‘in course of removal in widening of land to railway..’. The building valuation is increased to £3 10s in 1873. The occupier is revised from John [Mellor] to James Nixon in 1898, and to Armstrong in 1907.

According to the current Clerk of Sessions of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Omagh, the right bay of the first floor formerly served as a Sunday School room and was accessed through a now blocked door leading from now removed stair and gallery in Trinity Presbyterian Church Hall (HB11/11/07B). The gallery in the church hall was removed and the door blocked c.1957 when the extension to the church hall was built.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/35/1-First Edition OS Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/35/2-Second Edition OS Map (1854)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/35/3-Third Edition OS Map (1905-6)
4. PRONI VAL/1/D/6/6 -Town Plan of Omagh (1824-1844)
5. PRONI VAL/2/D/6/17 -Town Plan of Omagh (1849-1869)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/6/36 -Valuation Revisions (1860-1929)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/41/37-Valuation Revisions (1903-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/12/E/186/1/5 -Town Plan of Omagh (1882-1909)
9. PRONI VAL/12/F/7/7/1- Valuation Revisions (1930-35)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An attached three-bay two-storey stone former sexton’s house with Picturesque detailing, built 1873. The building is part of a distinct group that includes Trinity Presbyterian Church (HB11/11/07A) and the adjoining Church Hall (HB11/11/07B), which the former sexton’s house had once been internally connected to (with an upper floor serving as a Sunday School room). Although alteration has taken place, the house retains much of its original character with its Picturesque detailing and fine stonework.

General comments

This record has been renumbered as part of a group - previously HB11/11/004