Bridge Cottage, Inisherk Island, Crom Estate, Newtownbutler, Co. Fermanagh, BT92 8AP

Bridge Cottage is an interesting and pleasantly detailed cottage ornée, delightfully situated on Inisherk Island within the Crom Estate and accessed by White Bridge. Although modernised, the building retains a good deal of external character, contributing significantly to the landscape and integrity of the estate group as a whole.

The building is an L-plan, one-and-a-half storey cottage with three bays, aligned north-west to south-east on the west side of Inisherk Island. It was substantially remodelled in 1850-52 to create two houses, taking its present external form at that time. One house (the principal front section and the return) was occupied by the estate steward, and the other (to the north-east) by the head carpenter. In more recent times, the two houses have been made into one and the internal room configuration completely altered.

The right-hand bay is gabled. The pitched natural slate roof has four tall brick chimneys: one to the party wall between each bay of the main block, one to the rear gable of the cross-section and one to the rear return. A cast-iron skylight serves the rear pitch of the main block and the south-east pitch of the cross-section. All gables have decorative timber bargeboards with tall pointed finials. An advanced concrete eaves course supports half-round metal rainwater goods.

The walls are squared and snecked rubble stone with ribbon pointing. Windows are timber side-hung casements with decorative geometric glazing, cement-rendered reveals and concrete cills, though these are replacements and most retain the remains of stepped brick reveals visible beneath. The principal elevation faces south-west. The left bay has a window with a cast-concrete label drip mould. The central bay contains a modern timber-sheeted door to the right and a window to its left, set within a gabled open porch with pitched natural slate roof supported on cement-rendered side walls with a timber-sheeted tympanum. The right bay cross-gable projects slightly and features stepped brick quoins with a canted bay beneath, roofed with hipped natural slate and containing paired windows to each face. Above the apex is a small brick-infilled window with brick dressings. The south-east gable is identical to the cross-gable at the façade.

The north-east elevation consists of the rear projecting bay at the left and a similarly sized return to the right bay. All windows here are timber sliding sashes. The exposed central bay of the main block is wet-dashed, as are the inside cheeks of the projecting bay and return, and has a squat 6/6 window to the left. The rear gable of the left projecting section has tall narrow 4/4 windows to either side at ground floor and a squat 6/6 to upper floor. The right cheek has a small narrow 2/2 window at the extreme right end. The return is detailed as a house with the fourth chimney set at its far end. The gable has a tall narrow 4/4 to the left and a pair of 1x3 side-hung casements to the right and also to the centre of the upper floor. The right cheek has windows to either end, each with stone cill (that to the right is a pair). The left cheek has a timber-sheeted door to the left of centre with a 2/2 sliding sash to its immediate right. The south-east elevation has an 8/8 sliding sash to either side and a 3/3 to the centre; the remains of a brick reveal indicates this previously served as a door opening.

The cottage sits within a small garden delineated by a low fence on the west shore of Inisherk Island, overlooking the Boat House and Crom Castle. The novelist Shan Bullock (1865-1937) lived in one of the houses as a child. A building is shown here on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map.