The ‘principal undertaker’ in the Strabane area in the Ulster Plantation was James Hamilton, 1st Earl Abercorn. A privy councillor in the Scottish court he was encouraged by the King to take part in the plantation of this area. He was instrumental in Strabane receiving a Royal Charter in 1613 and had built a ‘strong and fair’ castle there (in Castle Street) by 1618 but the town was not fortified. The town corporation had 13 members. The Earl also began construction of a church but this was not completed until later in the century. This building was cruciform in plan and demolished in the 1870’s. Its surviving entrance gates are very Georgian in character and probably date from the Eighteenth Century.