Farm Complex, 67 Ballinran Rd, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JA

Farm Complex at 67 Ballinran Road, Kilkeel

This is a vernacular farm complex of early 19th-century origin, listed Grade B2, comprising a farmhouse and range of outbuildings arranged around three sides of a yard. The group survives as a rare example of its type, as very few such complexes have endured given modern farming requirements.

The farmhouse is a two-storey, four-bay house facing south, the left bay being a later addition. It has a pitched roof with artificial slates and three cement-rendered chimneys—one to each gable and a third between the first and second bay. The walls are granite rubble rendered with lined cement, and plastic gutters have been fitted. The original south elevation was symmetrical with a central door, now painted timber with three glazed panes above and panelled below. All windows are modern timber top-hung design: the ground floor has two windows to the left of the front door and one to the right, with one window per bay; the first floor has four windows, each aligned with the opening below. All window cills are granite. The left gable is plain. The right gable has a 1/1 top-hung timber window to the ground floor and a small fixed pane to the first floor left. A one-storey lean-to kitchen extension projects to the rear across bays 1 to 3, with a sky-lit slated roof, small chimney at the left, and rendered granite walls. This extension has two 2/2 sliding sash windows to the left of a modern timber door, with a manually-operated cowtail water pump positioned between the windows. The right bay (the later addition) has a margin-paned sliding sash window to each floor. All cills are granite.

Moving anti-clockwise around the yard at the rear:

Outbuilding 1 is a two-storey barn with a gabled natural slate roof and painted random rubble walls. A single-storey return abuts at the left on the yard-facing façade, and a slated monopitched shed to the right gable. The main block has two tongued-and-grooved sheeted doors to the ground floor and stone steps rising to a similar door at first-floor right. The first-floor door has a small dormer gable above. A dormer window to its left (above the left ground-floor door) contains a modern timber insert. The rear elevation has a lean-to shed abutting at the right, with one tongued-and-grooved door at the left and a window opening now infilled. A skylight lights the roof on this elevation.

Outbuilding 2, opposite the rear of the dwelling, is a single-storey, one-bay shed with a pitched natural slate roof and painted random rubble walls. The yard-facing façade has an enlarged modern timber window with a tongued-and-grooved boarded door to its right.

Outbuilding 3 is a two-storey barn with a large single-storey shed on the left gable. Both have pitched natural slate roofs and painted random rubble walls. A single tongued-and-grooved door stands at the right, with a 2x2 window to its left. Further left is a sheeted metal door, and at the extreme left, stone stairs rise over a tongued-and-grooved door to first-floor level. The first floor has a tongued-and-grooved boarded door below a dormer gable, with two 2x2 windows to the right. The shed on the left gable has tongued-and-grooved doors at both left and right, with a small window between. A PVC window is fitted to the left gable, with pigeon roosts in the apex and a lean-to corrugated-metal-roofed shed below. Lean-tos abut both blocks at the rear: that to the two-storey section is rendered concrete blockwork with a corrugated metal roof; that to the one-storey section is corrugated metal throughout.

Outbuilding 4, beside the house and in line with it, is a one-storey garage with a pitched asbestos-tiled roof and rendered walls. Two large metal sliding doors front the building; fixed windows are positioned at the right gable and at the rear.

Good stone walls and flat-iron carriage and pedestrian gates face the road.

The complex appears on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map (Down sheet 56) but was not valued in the 1834 Valuation, suggesting the complex had not yet evolved by that date. By 1861, it was in the ownership of Samuel McMurray, who also owned a nearby flax mill. The complex is marked on the 1901 map as Ballinran Post Office; the post office was apparently located in the left bay, with an entrance now blocked at the rear.

Although some windows have been altered, these changes remain within the original structural openings and do not substantially detract from the overall vernacular character of the complex. The group illustrates an ongoing evolution of great character. The current owner maintains a small private museum containing historical details, original documentation, and photographs.