Carra House, Carra, Newtownbutler, Co. Fermanagh, BT92 6DW

Carra House is an imposing and unusually proportioned two-storey house with basement, now in an advanced state of neglect but retaining considerable character and many original architectural features of interest.

The building is arranged in a symmetrical U-shaped plan formed by two separate projecting gabled sections at the rear, the southern section being longer than the northern. It comprises a central three-bay section with a three-bay frontage. The house is accessed by a long sweeping lane and occupies a prominent elevated position overlooking the road on the west side of Carra Townland, aligned north-south.

The structure is roofed in hipped natural slate with three chimneys set perpendicular to the ridge. Two chimneys are cement-rendered and positioned at the party wall between each bay of the central section, both decorated with octagonal chimney pots. The third is of red brick, similarly decorated, and set at the left-hand side of the southern projecting section. The eaves are overhanging with exposed rafter tails. Walls are harled.

The principal elevation faces east. Windows are generally 6/6 sliding sashes set in moulded stucco architraves with dressed stone cills. Those to the principal elevation also feature a vermiculated keyblock. At the centre of the east-facing elevation is a projecting gabled single-storey entrance porch, its roof now gone, with rusticated stucco remaining on the walls. The porch has a pole-moulded timber door-frame with sidelights and tripartite transom above (the door itself has been lost). The right and left cheeks of the porch each contain a window opening, with a further window in each of the two bays flanking the porch. Three windows are aligned above the ground floor openings.

The south elevation is three windows wide with an exposed basement. A later addition abuts the ground floor at the left, overhanging the basement level. The left ground floor window has been modified subsequently to provide access. The basement level contains four windows: that to the extreme left is a 6/6 sliding sash as described above; the others are 2/2 horizontally-divided sliding sashes, with paired examples to the right and a tripartite example to their left. The addition has a monopitched natural slate roof and the remains of cement-rendered walls. Its south face contains a door opening at right, formerly accessed by concrete steps (now collapsed), and to the left a 2x3 side-hung casement window. The cheeks are blank.

The rear elevation comprises the west gables of the two projecting sections, with a narrow section of the main block between them. Enclosed between the projecting sections at ground floor is a timber staircase formerly leading to the addition, accessed by a four-panelled timber door and covered by a narrow monopitched roof of protective plastic sheeting. A 6/6 sliding sash window is located at first floor.

The southern (right-hand) projecting section has a west gable with an exposed basement level containing three openings: a door opening at extreme right with a 6/6 sliding sash immediately to its left, and a pair of 2x3 side-hung casements to the left. The ground floor has the remains of a paired 2/2 sliding sash set right of centre, with a narrow infilled window opening to its right. At first floor is a narrow 4/2 sliding sash set left of centre. The north-facing cheek has a 6/6 sliding sash at the centre of each floor.

The northern (left-hand) projecting section has a window at ground floor left of its west gable, with a pair of 1x3 side-hung casements aligned above at first floor. The south-facing cheek is blank.

The north elevation of the main block contains three equally spaced windows to each floor.

Although a house at Carra is marked on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, the present building, which lies slightly north of the 1834 depiction, does not appear before the 1907 edition. The property's valuation dropped from £56 to £50 in 1866, suggesting that the earlier large house was replaced by the present smaller structure at that time. This is supported by the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoir, which records the earlier house as then occupied by Jason Hassard and noted that it had "much gone to decay".

A single-storey addition once abutted the extreme left end of the southern elevation of the left-hand section and the extreme right end of the northern elevation of the right-hand section, closing the U-shape to form a square plan. This addition is now ruinous.