60 Myra Road, Raholp, Downpatrick, County Down, BT30 7JX

A single-storey stone-built gardener's house with attic, built around 1860, forming part of the walled garden at Myra Castle. The building has a rectangular footprint and faces west across two bays.

The walls are constructed of random rubble greywacke with roughly dressed corner stones and some brick to the flues. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with angled ridge tiles, and has brick gable chimneystacks (rebuilt). Cast iron gutters run to exposed rafter tails.

The west elevation is symmetrical, with a central timber door flanked by windows. The door has four Gothic-arched panels over a tongued-and-grooved lower portion, fitted with a cast iron hoop knocker and brass knob, set within a chamfered timber frame and stone threshold. The windows are side-hung timber casements, each with four panes retaining a high proportion of original float glass. They have dressed stone cills, undressed stone lintels, and wrought iron grilles to the front windows.

The north gable is abutted by the garden wall and has two attic windows, diminished in size. The east (rear) elevation has a window to either side of a diminished central window at high level, screened from the garden by a rubble stone boundary wall terminated by a slender cylindrical pier, which encloses a narrow passage. The south gable is abutted by the garden wall and a lower outbuilding, and is lit by an attic window to the left side.

The walled garden is irregular in plan and bounded by a greywacke rubble wall with a curved section to the west and curved south-west corner. The wall is 80 per cent intact, with collapsed sections to the north and east. It is accessed by various openings, including Gothic-arched openings to the north and east. The main entrances to the west, adjacent to the gardener's house, comprise a cart entrance with heavy stone lintel and timber sheeted doors, and a small square-headed opening leading to a small rubble stone enclosure with a vaulted brick-lined roof.

Garden structures are derelict but include remnants of melon houses, peach houses and a boiler house, generally with brick bases and remains of heating systems, and some timber framing to glass houses, including at least one margin-paned half-glazed panelled door. A stone-built store with a double-pitch ventilated slate roof punctuates the wall to the west, with a central door and small windows either side, all having pointed-arched heads.

The gardener's house and walled garden occupy the northern portion of the Myra Castle demesne, north of the main house and farmyard, and are accessed by a tree-lined lane. A well stands to the west opposite the gardener's house, and a narrow river runs to the east through the walled garden. To the north is a metal gate leading to the lough shore and boat house, supported on rubble stone gate piers with a wrought iron kissing gate and rubble stone enclosure terminated by neat dressed stone piers.

The walled garden contains Walshestown Castle, an intact sixteenth-century tower house, and a medieval ecclesiastical site. The setting is unspoiled and of particularly high quality.