Rathturret, Rath Road, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3RX

Rathturret is a two-storey, three-bay late 19th-century Gothic Revival house with an integral tower, situated on the west side of Rath Road in mature grounds. The building is of double-pile construction with the principal elevation facing south toward the garden, while the main entrance is on the north elevation. The house is split-level, with the front rooms being lower than the rear rooms.

The exterior walls are constructed in red brick with a chamfered advanced base course and stringcourses of blue engineering bricks to each floor. The pitched roofs are artificial slated with terracotta ridges and exposed moulded rafter tails. Tall Tudor-revival style chimneys in red brick are grouped together with ornately corbelled copings and purple brick stringcourses. Half-round metal rainwater goods are fitted throughout. All windows are 1/1 sashes with stop-end chamfered reveals and Gothic heads inset with sandstone tympanums, some containing circular blind recesses. Moulded granite cills are fitted to windows, and moulded sandstone platbands appear between ground and first floors on certain elevations.

The north elevation comprises two bays. The left bay, one and a half storeys high and advancing slightly, contains four equally spaced ground-floor windows and two large wall-head dormers at upper-floor level, each with pitched artificial slated roofs, crested ridges, and decorative timber bargeboards inset with fretted Gothic motifs. Each dormer contains a pair of windows with common cills. The right bay, two storeys high and in three distinct parts, features a wall-head dormer with matching detailing above, followed by a narrower section containing three very narrow windows to each floor (those to the ground floor are very high with fixed transoms), and concludes with a section abutted on the right by the tower. The lintels of the lower window set form the cills of the upper set, which have flat granite heads.

The three-stage tower stands at the north-east corner. The first stage contains the main entrance, a chamfered Gothic doorway with a pair of timber varnished front doors, each with five panels (the bottom panel square, the top two tapering with the doorway head), all raised and fielded with decorative chamfering and brass furniture. Immediately above the doorcase is a Gothic-headed sandstone panel bearing a carved family crest with the motto 'HONORE ET AMORE', and below is 'A.D. 1883' in raised letters. The remaining front and right cheeks of the first stage each have a pair of narrow 1/1 sashes as detailed elsewhere. The second stage has three similar windows on its front, left, and right cheeks, with a moulded sandstone stringcourse at window head level. The third stage, standing free and with a steeply pitched square roof clad in clay tiles and swept at the bottom, has four windows on each of its four cheeks and a small leaded flat top with elaborate wrought iron cresting. Each of the four pitches of this stage contains a tiny glazed lucarne with a cusped window.

The west elevation is two bays wide, with the tower's right cheek flush with the left side. Each bay has a wall-head dormer detailed as those on the north elevation. The left bay contains a glazed timber door at basement level with a small 1/1 sash to its left, ground-floor windows stepping down from left to right, and first-floor windows within and to the side of the dormer, with a pair of taller 1/1 sashes at lower level to the right. The right bay, which advances slightly, has a moulded sandstone platband between floors, two large windows to each floor, and contains a swept roof holding the dormer. Its exposed left and right cheeks are blank.

The south elevation is the three-bay garden front, featuring a two-storey canted bay with a steeply pitched canted roof in the left bay, each cheek of which has a 1/1 sash window with shared chamfered granite cill and head. The central bay has three ground-floor window openings (two windows and a steel door with fixed transom) with chamfered granite lintels, and a pair of windows at first floor in a small wall-head gable. The right bay has two windows to each floor, those to the first floor being under a wall-head gable. A four-stack chimney rises between the central and right bays. The elevation is topped by a moulded sandstone platband between ground and first floors.

The east elevation is in two bays, each under a gable with decorated bargeboard; the right bay advances. The left gable is blank, with walls embellished by a moulded sandstone platband and blue engineering bricks; its right pitch catslides at a different pitch and is abutted by a modern single-storey kitchen extension. The exposed section of the east gable features decorative engineering brick, and the left bay at first floor contains a gabled dormer with a glazed door opening onto the roof.

The modern single-storey kitchen extension has walls matching the house and abuts the end wall and left cheek of the right gable. Its flat roof serves as a patio and is enclosed by a brick parapet with plain metal railings. The extension contains a 1/1 sash at left opening to the basement, four 1/1 sash windows with granite lintels on its south wall, a glazed timber door at left of its east elevation (which is otherwise blank), and a single 1/1 window on its north-facing cheek.

To the east of the house is a small domestic yard containing a garage and shed. The yard is open to the south toward the gardens and enclosed to the north by a brick wall with a timber-and-groove sheeted door at center and a pair of timber-and-groove sheeted sliding garage doors at the left end under a brick gable.

The setting includes a short driveway from Rath Road to the north, planted with mature trees. Immediately to the north-west of the house stands a substantial 1970s timber chalet with shallow roof and timber-clad walls. To the south-west, south, and south-east of the house are mature gardens that terrace and are planted with mature trees and shrubs. A modern open-air swimming pool is located to the south. At the south-east boundary with Rath Road is a disused entrance way with timber-and-groove sheeted gates.