25 Forkhill Road, Newry, Co Armagh, BT35 8LZ

A two-storey, two-bay farmhouse of mid-19th century date, aligned north-east to south-west, retaining much of its original character and forming a pleasant vernacular grouping with its outbuildings and rubble stone boundary walls.

The main house has a pitched natural slate roof with red brick chimneys to each gable, tiled skews and advanced eaves course. The ridge retains the remains of decorative cast-iron fleur-de-lys crestings. Rainwater goods are absent. The walls are of random rubble construction. The principal south-east elevation is whitewashed and lime rendered. A windbreak porch with shallow monopitched natural slate roof occupies the centre, with blank cheeks either side and a modern timber door with single glazed top panel. To the left and right of the porch are 3/3 exposed box sliding sash windows with painted granite cills. Above at first floor are three 2/2 sliding sashes of similar detail. The south-west gable displays ghost marks of a former one-and-a-half storey outbuilding and is wet-dashed above. A t+g sheeted door opens to the first floor on this gable. The rear elevation is largely blank except for a fixed single-pane window without cill to the ground floor left. The right gable is blank with ghost marks indicating a former one-storey outbuilding.

To the south stands a one-and-a-half storey outbuilding in poor condition. It has a pitched natural slate roof and whitewashed, rendered rubble stone walls with painted brick dressings. The principal west-facing elevation features an opening with segmental brick head partially infilled with concrete blocks at the left end, and a t+g sheeted half-door at the right. Two circular ventilation openings appear above at upper level. The left gable has an infilled window opening at upper floor. The rear elevation contains a door opening and matching ventilation openings. The right gable is abutted by an external stair of seven granite steps leading to a t+g sheeted loading door at upper level. Adjacent to the stair is a small ruinous outbuilding with rubble stone walls and monopitched natural slate roof, featuring a door opening to its west face and a small window opening to its rear.

Historical evidence from Ordnance Survey maps and valuation records from 1835 onwards indicates that the building shown on maps from 1835 was originally a one-storey structure with rateable valuation less than £5. The present two-storey form probably dates from the mid-1800s, with valuation increases recorded in 1862 (£3 10s), 1870 (£4) and 1884 (£4 15s), though these may relate to outbuilding additions rather than heightening of the main house. Local tradition records that the house once belonged to Captain Holywood, a local sea captain, with a memorial to him in nearby St Michael's Church.

The building is accessed by a lane from the road and is set within a rubble stone boundary wall. A cast-iron gas lamppost, now lacking its lantern and not original, stands to the front of the property.