6 Glendesha Road, Mullaghbawn, Newry, Co. Armagh, BT35 9XN

6 Glendesha Road, Mullaghbawn

This is a semi-detached two-storey building with a half-dormer, arranged in three bays. It was built around 1795 by the Commissioners of the Barracks as a barrack building and converted into a dwelling house to provide accommodation for a doctor around 1820. A dispensary providing free medical treatment operated in an outbuilding adjacent to the neighbouring house. In 1891 the building was sold to the Catholic Church and became the parochial house for St Mary's, Mullaghbawn.

The building has a rectangular plan form with a single-storey, single-bay entrance porch to the north-west having a hipped roof. A single-storey and two-storey extension extends to the rear. The building is attached on the north-east to the neighbouring property (HB16/16/021A).

The roof is pitched fibre cement with ridge tiles. There are three red brick chimneysstacks with profiled brick cornices, lead flashing and terracotta chimney pots. Rainwater goods are uPVC and aluminium. The walls are painted roughcast render with smooth rendered eaves course, plinth and narrow margin corners.

The principal elevation to the north-west is asymmetrical, with square-headed openings, granite cills and smooth raised margins. The first floor features gabled wallhead dormer windows with moulded timber bargeboards surmounted by terracotta finials. Windows are replacement uPVC casements, except for a replacement fixed margin-paned window to the porch. A timber panelled door is located to the north-east of the entrance porch.

The south-west elevation forms a gable with a single square-headed window opening at ground floor, fitted with a replacement uPVC casement. The rear elevation to the south-east has two half-dormers with generally replacement uPVC windows. The extension spans three bays: the left and right bays are single-storey lean-to structures with a two-storey pitched-roof central bay. A replacement uPVC entrance door opens from the left cheek of the extension. The larger windows to the extension are replacement uPVC; smaller windows are timber fixed pane. The left cheek of the upper floor extension has a semi-circular headed window with margin-paned timber sliding sash and smooth panelled tympanum.

The garden contains a free-standing, square-on-plan structure with a hipped roof built around 1900, formerly used as a bathroom. It was previously connected by a timber and corrugated iron walkway (now gone) to the upper floor of the main building. This structure has a natural slate roof, replacement metal rainwater goods and a cast iron soil pipe. The walls are painted red brick with timber sliding sash windows and replacement panelled timber doors. A plain glass transom light sits above the entrance door to the east. The interior has exposed brick and timber sheeted ceiling, and is currently used for storage.

A rendered boundary party wall with the neighbouring property (HB16/16/021A) extends from the south-east rear elevation into the gardens. Concrete paths and a rendered retaining wall with concrete coping lead to mature gardens beyond, which include historic structures forming part of the original barracks complex.

The building is set back from and runs parallel with the road, accessed by a gravel driveway from the east. The attached building to the north-east, a mature hedgerow to the north-west, and mature gardens to the south-east with boundary walls form the immediate setting.

The original barracks accommodation building was formerly surrounded by an inner boundary wall with four two-storey corner towers. Adjacent to the roadside, an uncoursed rubblestone boundary survives and forms a retaining wall, extending from the north-eastern elevation of the surviving tower. One corner tower, to the north-west, survives in complete condition, while extant remains of the north-east and south-east towers are visible. Several further sections of the inner uncoursed rubblestone barrack wall survive as boundary walls to the gardens.

The surviving corner tower is a two-storey square-on-plan structure with a hipped roof of fibre cement slates, black fibre cement ridge tiles and a red brick chimneystack to the north. The walls are limewashed random rubblestone with a projecting granite eaves course supporting uPVC rainwater goods. Doors and windows have timber lintels; windows have granite cills and doors are timber tongue and groove. The main elevation faces south-east with four stone steps leading to a door at upper level, fitted with a replacement metal handrail and original wrought iron door furniture. A wall abuts the south-eastern elevation with a rectangular headed archway with replacement steel lintel, opening onto stone steps leading down to a ground floor door with a 6 over 6 timber sliding sash window above. The west elevation has a replacement top-hung four-paned timber window at ground floor level. A wrought iron gate provides access to the adjacent road. The north elevation facing the road is blank. The east elevation, where the boundary wall abuts the building, has a replacement top-hung four-paned timber window at ground floor level with a red brick relieving arch above.

The former barracks complex is located at the foot of Slievebrack/Croslieve mountains with extensive views to the north of surrounding countryside within the ring of Gullion.