2 Maytown Road, Bessbrook, Newry, Co. Armagh, BT35 7LY

A detached asymmetrical two-storey Rectory, built around 1860 by an unknown architect, stands at the junction of Maytown Road and Main Street, approximately one kilometre east of Bessbrook village in County Armagh. The property comprises the Rectory itself, outbuildings, and glebe land with fields.

The main Rectory has an L-shaped footprint with a natural slate roof of varying pitches and angled ridge tiles. Two brown brick chimneysstacks with yellow brick bands and moulded cornices rise from the structure (one original, one modern). Decorative painted timber bargeboards project over the eaves. The rainwater goods are a mixture of replacement uPVC and surviving original cast-iron elements.

The walls are painted roughcast render with a painted smooth rendered plinth. The principal north-facing elevation is asymmetrical and features a centrally-positioned pitched slated porch with roll-top ridge tiles and decorative painted timber bargeboard. The porch contains a four-panelled timber door with brass furniture beneath a plain rectangular overlight with a modern light fixture mounted above. The door opens onto a single concrete step to ground level.

Window openings display camber-headed designs to the first floor and porch, and square-headed openings to the ground floor. The main block has two-over-two timber sliding sash windows with plain reveals and projecting masonry sills. An eastern projection features square-headed openings with plain reveals and projecting sills, containing paired one-over-one timber sliding sash windows with Tudor arches to the upper sashes. These windows are now double-glazed replacements. A pitched slated extension extends to the east with a north projection. The west elevation has two camber-headed window openings to the first floor and two square-headed door openings at ground level. The rear south elevation features a central projection with square-headed window openings containing one-over-one timber sliding sash windows. A single-storey lean-to abuts the east elevation, giving onto an enclosed yard.

To the rear south of the Rectory stands a two-storey outbuilding with a pitched natural slate roof, a single red brick chimneystack with stepped cornice, and masonry walling with granite return quoins and red brick surrounds to window and door openings. The east elevation is painted and rendered to match the Rectory. Paired Tudor-arched sliding sash windows appear on the first-floor west elevation.

To the north, divided from the Rectory land by a rubblestone wall with a wrought-iron pedestrian gate, sit two single-storey outbuildings on the glebe land, employing the same style and materials as the rear outbuilding.

The site is bounded to the south along Main Street and to the east by rubblestone walling with cock and hen coping. Along Maytown Road to the east runs painted roughcast rendered walling with painted masonry capping. Gate piers with wrought-iron gates featuring floral motifs stand over a steel cattle grid at the eastern entrance to Maytown Road.

The setting includes a garden to the west and north of the Rectory, with a stream running along the western site boundary and a former well located in the garden. Glebe land consisting of fields extends to the north.