Benagh House, 51 Benagh Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LT

Benagh House is a one and a half storey, three-bay house with a two-storey rear return, situated up a lane on the east side of Benagh Road in Kilkeel. The building is Grade B1 listed.

The main structure has a pitched natural slate roof with diminishing courses, cast iron skylight in the rear slope, and raised rendered brick verges. Roughcast rendered chimneys sit on each gable. There are no rainwater goods. The walls are unpainted cement roughcast with a smooth base course and projecting eaves. All openings have smooth cement rendered surrounds with painted granite cills.

The principal façade faces west and is symmetrical, with the front entrance positioned centrally. This comprises a modern four-panelled painted timber door flanked by two-paned side lights with cills, topped by a five-paned fanlight set within a segmental headed opening. The left and right bays each contain a large two-paned fixed stained timber window with a top-hung transom above. The left gable is blank at ground floor, with two modern windows above, each comprising a pair of fixed panes with top-hung transom.

The rear elevation is abutted at its centre by the two-storey return. The remaining ground floor wall to the right has a pair of modern 1/1 top-hung casement windows set in a single opening. The wall to the left of the return is identical. The return roof matches the main roof and ties into it, with a lower ridge and eaves. It has a cast iron skylight on its right pitch and a tall rendered chimney on its rear gable, with semicircular plastic rainwater goods. The rear gable of the return is abutted to the right by a range of outhouses. The remaining wall and right cheek are blank. The left cheek has a modern half-glazed door with a modern top-hung casement window to its right. The right gable of the main block is blank at ground floor with two modern 2/2 casement windows in the gable.

The outbuildings form a continuous south-facing range in four distinct sections, each with separate roofs. All have unpainted, wetdashed walls and no rainwater goods, with the majority of openings on south-facing elevations. The first is two-bayed, each with a byre served by a sheeted timber door. The second has a sheeted double-leaf door. The third has a sheeted half door on the left and a sheeted door to the right, with two steel casement windows between. The fourth is a two-bay store with two small vents, a sheeted half door, and a sliding door, with a steel casement window in the end gable. The right cheek is blank except for a small four-paned damaged window to the right and a small chicken flap at the centre.

A hand pump to the rear left of the house bears a flag logo. Unusually ornate wrought iron gates lead from around the house to the front gardens and fields. A small orchard stands to the southwest, with a small front garden and beech-lined former drive to the west. To the southeast are two single-storey outbuildings with pitched natural slate roofs and whitewashed walls, with a Dutch barn beyond, enclosing a yard. A pair of flat iron gates on plain posts opens to the rear lane.

In a field to the northeast of the house stands an outside toilet (dry closet) with a shallow pitched natural slate roof, repaired with asbestos slates to the right pitch, and a truncated brick chimney on the east gable. Walls are ochre-washed with slightly projecting eaves. The door in the west gable is painted sheeted timber with a ventilation gap at the top. The rear gable has a large rectangular opening at ground floor from which latrine waste could be removed. Internally, there is a niche on each side wall (one may have been a window) and a boxed timber seat with two circular openings below which the dry latrine buckets were placed.