The Game Keeper’s Cottage, The Demesne, Mountain Road, Ballymurphy, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1PL

The Game Keeper's Cottage

A small, simple single-storey gamekeeper's cottage, probably dating from around 1865, located within the Portaferry House demesne just south-west of Mountain Road, less than half a mile north of Portaferry House itself. The cottage has decorative eaves and barge boards.

The front (south) elevation is symmetrical, with a plain timber-sheeted door and plain fanlight at the centre, flanked by almost square sash windows with vertical astragals in a 2 over 2 pattern. Brick dressings frame all openings.

The rear (north) elevation is partially occupied by a small lean-to timber conservatory with a single glazed door to the main building. Changes to the stonework and wall outline indicate that a small lean-to kitchen extension formerly stood in place of the conservatory. The rest of this elevation is blank, though the outline of a small blocked window is visible in the gable. The west gable has a single upper-level window matching those on the front. The east gable contains two windows, one at ground-floor level and one at upper level, both of the same pattern as the front windows.

The gabled roof is covered with Bangor blue slates and has a single red brick chimney stack in the centre, featuring simple corbelling and two decorative pots. A small Velux window has been installed to the rear. PVC rainwater goods are present.

The cottage is set back from the estate road and has a well with the remains of a cast-iron pump situated a few yards from the rear yard wall. A large walled yard to the rear contains mono-pitched out-houses with Bangor blue slate roofs and a doorway to the road.

The cottage does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1860 but is shown on the 1899-1900 map, where it is marked as "Keeper's Lodge". Its architectural style suggests construction around 1865. A piece of skirting timber discovered during renovations to the house in 1987 has an inscription reading "Robert S. Cell Newcastle, Co. Down 20th July 1813", though this timber was clearly recycled from an earlier structure.

The building was sympathetically renovated around 1987 and has group value with the other listed buildings within the demesne.