7 Bridge Street, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3PZ

This is an early 19th-century, two-storey, three-bay house located on the north side of Bridge Street in Kilkeel. It was originally an inn of attested date and is of some local interest. The house has a pitched roof covered with artificial slate, with a cement-rendered chimney to the left gable. The walls have a modern wet-dash finish. All windows are modern, top-hung timber windows with dressed granite cills. The principal elevation features a modern, partly-glazed, timber front door in the middle bay, and a single window to the left. A coachway has been filled in to the right, retaining dressed granite jambs and voussoirs with a keystone incised ‘J 1818 S’. A window is now situated within the infilled void. Three equally spaced windows are positioned on the first floor. The left and right gables are abutted by adjoining properties. The rear elevation is rendered and painted, highly altered, with no features of particular interest.

A datestone commemorates the building’s construction in 1818. The ‘JS’ is likely to refer to John Shannon, possibly the same person who ran the Kilmorey Arms Hotel in 1860. An early 20th-century photograph by W.A. Green depicts the roof with large slates and smooth, rendered and painted walls. This photograph also shows a multi-paned transom above the front door, an 8/8 sliding sash window to the ground floor on the left, and sheeted timber doors in the coachway. The first-floor windows were originally 6/6 sliding sashes. It was formerly used as a hotel and is now a private house.