The Toll-gate houses of Omagh

BAXTER'S TOLL HOUSE COTTAGE

Mary Ann Baxter was living in a council terraced house at 8, St. Patrick's Terrace when the small farm in Derry Road came up for auction. She bid for the farm with her own savings and bought it outright, moving in soon after in 1931. The farm comprised a few fields which ran from the Derry Road down to the River Strule, but not quite to the river bank itself. The land included a thatched cottage and barn at the Derry Road end; in fact, the flank wall of the cottage butted onto the footpath alongside the road; and a large orchard garden at the front of the cottage. All has now been swept away and the site and fields redeveloped for housing with the expansion of Omagh itself.

The thatched cottage remained thatched up to its demolition in 1992, the demolition being recorded by my uncle Jimmy O'Neill who was alerted on the day (a Sunday) by a friend. It was the last thatched building located within Omagh's town boundaries and worthy of preservation. However, there were other, more cogent reasons for its preservation.

The old road linking Omagh to Derry originally followed the present route from Omagh to Gortin on the other side of the Strule river. This road was muddy and hilly, often impassable in severe winter months in the 1800s.

Accordingly, during the era of turnpike road construction (just prior to the age of the railways which rendered turnpikes unnecessary) it was decided to build a new turnpike road between Omagh and Derry on the other side of the Strule / Foyle river system. The funds were raised by private subscription and the scheme carried out sometime in the 1830s. The private investors expected to be reimbursed by tolls paid by the new road users, just as in the present day by road users in the U.S.A..

In order to collect the tolls, toll-collectors were employed and housed in accommodation built alongside the road at dedicated payment points. And that explains the origin of the Baxter thatched cottage - it began life as a "toll-house". And it gave its name to that stretch of the Derry Road. An article in the "Ulster Herald" newspaper dated 11th March 1995

which included the following: "Earlier generations referred to the Derry Road as Tollgate Brae, the toll being collected, presumably, for the upkeep of the road. It should be recalled that the old road to Derry ran along the other bank of the Strule River, making what we call the Derry Road of comparatively recent origin."

I believe this except came from a regular feature of the newspaper called "100 years ago" and was written therefore in 1895. The word "Brae" is taken from the Gaelic and means a steep slope, it is also common in Scotland for the same reason. The tollgate house would have had a long gate fixed in position at that point across the road, to halt the travellers of that time until the toll or fee had been paid, the toll collector operating the gate's opening and closure. There would have been a scale of charges covering mounted riders and coaches of that time; pedestrians no doubt simply walked through the neighbouring fields at that juncture.

The thatched cottage was the original toll-house. There was no side opening onto the road, but there was a window set high up beneath the roof of the single-storied building with a good view of the road in both directions.

The cottage and the orchard to the front were all that remained when Jimmy Baxter died; he had sold the fields for development. Jimmy died in 196 and what was left passed to his widow Molly, who was childless, a lady fond of the Guinness despite her matchstick figure. She sold off everything before her death, even the roof over her head, to a man named Bradley who owned a sportswear shop, on condition she could retain the cottage to live in. Bradley agreed and cleared the old orchard to build a new house for himself. Upon Molly's death he had the cottage demolished on a Sunday, clearing the site in a day, and built a second house there for his daughter. There was no time for anyone to object or seek a preservation order. The cottage had to date from the 1830s at least.