97 Windmill Rd, Cranfield, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LD is a Grade Record Only listed building in the Newry, Mourne and Down local planning authority area, Northern Ireland.

97 Windmill Rd, Cranfield, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4LD

WRENN ID
spare-corner-auburn
Grade
Record Only
Local Planning Authority
Newry, Mourne and Down
Country
Northern Ireland
Source
NI Environment Agency listing

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Description

At Cranfield Point on a cliff top, this pair of single-storey lighthouse keepers' houses stands aligned north to south. Originally built as mirror-image properties in the early 19th century (circa 1803), they were substantially altered when partially demolished and converted into a single dwelling in 1975, leaving little of their original character.

The houses retain a pitched natural slate roof with large slates laid in diminishing courses, raised granite coped verges, and squat pebble-dashed chimneys on the north and south gables. The chimney on the north gable has a distinctive tall cast iron chimney pot with a crested crown resembling an early steam train smokestack. The south end of the main block has been shortened from its original length, and its chimney is modern with a plainer stack. At the north end, the roof is double-pitched to the rear with a similar chimney. Walls are pebble-dashed with a smooth base course, although originally they were rendered smooth and painted.

Each property was originally three bays wide with a central flat-roofed porch and 2/2 sliding sash windows. In 1975, the left two bays of the left-hand house were removed, and the remaining porch on the right house was rebuilt in timber and glass. The three remaining window openings were enlarged and fitted with modern picture windows with thin concrete cills. The south gable was rebuilt, abutted on the right by the modern chimney, and has a modern door and window on its left. North gables are abutted by a single-storey lean-to with a hipped natural slate roof and modernised openings, itself partially abutted on the right by a modern flat-roofed garage. The rear elevation has been heavily altered, with a modern flat-roofed extension extending over the original rear yard and advancing beyond the south gable of the front block.

An 1834 valuation describes the original building as a 70-foot by 21-foot block with two returns each 22 feet by 15 feet. An 1863 valuation notes them as two houses for two families. A third dwelling of T-plan was erected on the south gable in the 1860s—shown on the 1901 Ordnance Survey map but now surviving only as foundations recalled by the present owner.

The lighthouse keepers occupied these houses until moving to Greencastle in 1922. The property was subsequently purchased by Allen S. Carey, headmaster of Mourne Grange School, and sold to the current owner's family in the 1970s.

Cranfield Point lighthouse, erected by Thomas Rogers in 1803 for the Board of the Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin, was originally described as 130 feet high with a 12-foot diameter lantern. An 1835 valuation records it as only 30 feet high, with most of the tower having been dismantled and its stonework reused in a new lighthouse erected on Haulbowline Rock in 1824. The old light appeared in ruins on the 1859 Ordnance Survey map and disappeared sometime during the following decade due to coastal erosion. A watch hut formerly stood on the ground west of the houses, shown on the 1903 map but leaving no trace today.

The property occupies an exposed cliff-top setting with its own track to the beach. The front drive serves two large gardens—originally serving each house—with the left garden now containing a modern swimming pool. The rear is enclosed by a 1.5-metre high random rubble granite wall with concrete coping.

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