Fernhill House, 83 Clonallan Road, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3QQ

Fernhill House is a two-storey, three-bay house probably dating from the mid to late 18th century, with an early to mid 19th-century extension. The complex stands on a hilltop in mature landscaped grounds and includes a small derelict gate lodge on its western boundary facing Clonallan Road. The entire complex is now derelict with few original features remaining intact.

The original house has a pitched natural slate roof (partially collapsed) with cement-rendered chimneys to both left and right gables. Advanced eaves carry half-round metal rainwater goods, and a cast iron skylight sits on the rear pitch. The walls are lime-rendered and unpainted. The central bay is narrower than the flanking bays and is abutted by a later two-storey porch (not tied into the front wall). The porch has a gabled natural slate roof with fretted Gothic Revival style bargeboards (partially missing) and terracotta ridges, set on a steeply pitched roof. Its front wall has window openings on each floor and a doorway on its left cheek; the remainder is blank. The flanking bays on either side of the porch each have a single window opening per floor, with granite cills and some retaining exposed sash boxes.

The left gable of the house is abutted by a one-and-a-half storey addition with a gabled natural slate roof (aligned north-south) and overhanging timber eaves. This addition advances slightly beyond the main façade but not as far as the porch. It features a single-storey canted bay window on the ground floor with canted timber natural slate roof and moulded timber eaves on a masonry apron. The bay front is twice as wide as its cheeks and appears to have contained sliding sash windows. In the gable above is a single window opening with a recessed box sash. The left elevation of the addition has a similar bay window and continues northward as the wall enclosing the western side of the rear yard, with a doorway into the yard at its right end. The rear gable of the addition appears to have been abutted at one time by a single-storey lean-to, with a window opening on its left side at the join with the main house.

The rear elevation of the main house is abutted at its centre by a red brick extension, continuing to the ground floor left. The remainder is harled rubble stone with single window openings to each remaining bay (the ground floor opening is set to the left side). This extension dates from approximately 1900 and has a shallow roof to the two-storey block and a collapsed lean-to corrugated metal roof to the single-storey left bay. Its left cheek has a small window opening. The right bay of the main house has a ground floor window opening on its right.

The rear yard is enclosed on three sides by high rubble walls and to the south by the house. Internally, outbuildings occupy three sides of the yard in reasonable condition with pitched natural slate roofs and rubble stone walls, devoid of window openings but with plain doorways.

The garden originally extended to the south and west of the house. The area to the south appears to have been lawns; that to the west is heavily planted with trees and shrubs and has a driveway. At the western end of the driveway, on the western boundary, are a pair of modern wrought iron gates on plain piers at the left end and a pair of traditional flat iron gates at the right end.

The derelict gate lodge is single-storey and two bays wide, with a hipped natural slate roof now collapsed. The rubble stone walls are blank except for the front (western) elevation. The right bay has a doorway with a 6/6 sash window to its left; the left bay has a similar window. The interior is plain, with a fireplace on the party wall between the rooms and a door between the two rooms positioned to the left.

The detailing of the remaining staircase suggests the main house dates from the mid to late 18th century. A rectangular building is shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map. It was valued at £4 15 shillings in the 1835 First Valuation and described as measuring 35 feet by 25 feet by 15 feet 6 inches. These dimensions remained unchanged in the 1861 valuation, but the return at left and front porch are noted at this time, indicating them as mid-19th-century additions.