Adjacent to 15 Sabbath Hill, Ballymartin, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4UR

A Grade B1 listed building comprising a vernacular farmhouse with outbuildings and gates at Ballymartin, Kilkeel, Co Down.

The main farmhouse, which is the only element listed for protection, is a one and a half storey dwelling with two bays facing south, plus a two-storey barn forming a third bay. The pitched roof is covered with natural slate, with some artificial slates at the ridge to the rear. A natural slate wall-head dormer window with timber finialled barge boards is set into the façade, and a cat slide roof extends over a rear scullery outshot. A cement-rendered chimney rises from the party wall between the first and second bays. The walls are constructed of whitewashed random rubble granite with advanced eaves. Rainwater goods are absent.

The south-facing elevation features a painted timber-and-groove sheeted door to the middle bay, retaining its original lock and key. Ground floor fenestration comprises a 2/2 sliding sash window to the left of the door and another to the left bay, all with granite cills. The end bay to the right has a large pair of sliding wooden doors. At first-floor level, a dormer window sits centrally, aligned with the window below. A small timber-and-groove painted loading door serves the first floor of the right bay. The left gable is partly obscured by a large modern one-storey shed, with a first-floor window visible in the gable face.

The rear elevation shows varied fenestration: a small top-opening 2/4 window to the barn at left, a single sliding sash window to the projecting scullery (which has a lean-to roof at a shallower slope than the main roof), a window to the parlour at centre, and a fixed two-paned window to the bedroom above. A random rubble lean-to barn with corrugated iron roof abuts the right gable, fitted with a pair of painted wooden sliding doors in its façade gable. A small roofless lean-to shed adjoins this to the right. The exposed gable of the main block is blank.

The opposite outbuildings are noted as having undergone too much alteration to merit listing protection. These comprise a one-storey shed with return (pitched roof with painted corrugated metal, monopitched return) and a more substantial two-storey byre with stone external steps and a large one-storey shed return, all with corrugated asbestos roofing and random rubble granite walls.

The main gate to the site is constructed of flat iron with ram's horn motifs. The right pier is larger and carries an 1868 datestone in granite. The left pier is more recent, dating from a widening of the entrance. Other traditional gates to adjoining fields are not listed.

Documentary evidence indicates the house appeared on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map but was not valued in the contemporary Valuation Book, implying it was substantially smaller at that time. The owner states it was raised in the mid-19th century, supported by the 1868 datestone on the gatepost and by a recorded increase in valuation from £1 to £2.10s.0d in the 1868 Valuation Revision entry. The Irvine family occupied the property from the mid-18th century until 1956, when a new bungalow was constructed in an adjacent field. The original lease was granted to Edward Irvine by General F.R. Chesney of Packolet House, Ballyardle, as a wedding present; Irvine was Chesney's coachman.