8 Manse Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4BN

8 Manse Road, Kilkeel

A Grade B2 listed house, one of five built in 1888 by Samuel Shannon as part of an impressive unified architectural group known as Cloona Villas (with No. 10), set in an attractive communal landscaped setting on the western side of Manse Road.

The house is a finely detailed late Victorian two-storey structure with attic, constructed in red brick with yellow brick detailing. It forms the right one of three terraced houses within the group and is two bays wide. The pitched natural slate roof has red clay crested ridges and a tiled verge to the right gable. A decorative red brick chimney with flues delineated by raised bricks rises from the right gable. The eaves are finished with three courses of decorative brick supporting half round metal gutters.

The front walls are built in English garden wall bond with a chamfered granite base course. A two-storey canted right bay projects slightly under a large gable. Between ground and first floor, two courses of decorative yellow brick are separated by two courses of red brick, with stepped granite quoins at the right corner. The right bay gable features timber bargeboards with decorative cartouches and a spiked finial, with a recessed oculus containing a small window at the centre.

To the ground floor left is a modern painted timber and glass porch (which continues to No. 10), abutting the left cheek of the advanced bay and featuring a modern four-panelled glazed door and glazed roof with white painted interior walls. Above this porch at first floor left is a narrow 1/1 sliding sash window. The right bay contains a two-storey canted bay window with red brick walls, moulded granite cills, and a corbelled concrete roof. The canted bay has recessed brick panels dressed with yellow brick (two to front and one on each cheek), with no string course at first floor. The left gable forms the party wall with No. 10. The right gable is cement rendered with no openings at ground and first floor levels. At attic level, single modern 1/1 top-hung plastic windows with plain dressed granite cills are set in the original openings to the left and right of the gable.

The rear elevation comprises a two-storey return with attic filling one and a half bays, followed by a single-storey return beyond with a concrete tiled roof. All rear windows are plastic.

The setting features a common landscaped lawn with driveways dissecting the frontage. A granite rubble boundary wall with embattled coping encloses the whole site, with a pair of square gate piers facing Manse Road, though the gates are no longer present. To the rear, beyond the carriageway, a rear garden contains a 1930s garage, the finials of which may have originated from the original front porch.