Tower Hill, 29 Turmore Road, Donaghmore, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1PJ

Tower Hill is a much altered mid-19th-century farmhouse with a derelict gate lodge, neither of which retains features of special architectural or historical interest.

The main house is a two-storey, three-bay structure built in the mid-19th century on elevated ground to the north of Turmore Road. It has a hipped natural slate roof aligned north-east to south-west with overhanging boxed eaves carrying modern aluminium rainwater goods. There are modern red brick chimneys to either side of the central bay, with a similar chimney on an advanced chimneybreast to the right gable. The rear pitch has a wall-head chimney on its right side.

The principal elevation faces south-east. The left and right bays are advanced and wider than the recessed central bay. The walls are rendered with modern pebble dashing and painted V-channelled quoins frame either side of the left and right bays. A smooth rendered and painted basecourse runs along the base. The left and right bays are identical, each having modern uPVC casement windows with granite cills to both floors, with those to the first floor being diminished in height and width.

The central bay is finished with 'crazy paving' stone cladding and is abutted by a single-storey porch. The porch has stucco walls that are band rusticated with channelled quoins over the doorway. Its roof is concealed behind a moulded entablature with plain frieze and shallow pediment, framed by plain blocks supporting painted concrete eagles. The front doorway contains the original 19th-century door, a 9-panelled door with a 3 by 3 paned glazed transom in blue and green glass, brass furniture, and four dressed granite steps up from the driveway. To either side of the doorcase are narrow 1/1 uPVC windows with granite cills, and a window to the middle first floor matches those on the flanking bays. The left gable has a uPVC window to each floor.

The rear elevation is much altered. The left bay has a non-aligned window to each floor, the right bay is blank, and the central bay has a non-aligned window to each floor and is abutted on its right by a narrow return detailed as the house and set under a cat-slide of the main roof. The right cheek of this return has a modern casement window with concrete cill to the ground floor, and the rear face has a small 2/2 sash window to the first floor with sandstone cill. The right gable of the house is abutted by a small modern single-storey extension with pitched artificial slate roof and pebble dashed walls. At first floor it has two 2/2 sliding sash windows with sandstone cills, one to each end, and a door to its right cheek. The extension's front gable has windows matching the house.

The house is accessed by a tree-lined avenue from Turmore Road. At the road stands a small derelict gate lodge, a single-storey, two-bay structure with direct entry in plan. It has a modern corrugated metal roof but retains remains of overhanging boxed eaves and a single red brick chimneystack. The walls are harled, with a central door flanked by window openings with sandstone cills. Few original features remain, though some scalloped bargeboards survive to the right (north) gable.

The farmyard to the rear of the main house is enclosed to the south-west by a high rubble stone wall, embattled with a slightly taller archway dressed with sandstone platband and brick voussoirs. On the north-west side of the rear yard is a two-storey outbuilding with pitched natural slate roof, random rubble stone walls, and external stairs. A small walled garden remains to the north of the house.

Historical Development

The building is cited as 'Castle' on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map. The 1836 Valuation records it as occupied by George Higgins with dimensions of 34 feet by 18 feet by 12 feet. By the 1860 map it is named 'Tower Hill', and the gate lodge is explicitly captioned. The 1862 Valuation shows it occupied by Holt Waring Lindsay with dimensions of 60 feet by 21 feet, two storeys. Clearly the original structure was rebuilt or enlarged. The house was refurbished in 1987 when abutting servants' quarters were demolished. Historic Monuments of Mid-Ulster Building survey slides dated 1982 show this demolished block to have had 2/2 sliding sash windows to each floor. At that time, the right gable was abutted by a low one-and-a-half-storey vernacular dwelling (tenant's quarters) with pitched natural slate roof aligned parallel with the main roof, harled rubble stone walls, central porch to the front gable (now ruinous), and windows to each floor with those to the attic set in gabled wall-head dormers. The narrow rear right room is presumed to have been a corridor linking the main house to the vernacular house. The derelict gate lodge is described in secondary sources as a simple single-storey lodge, three bays symmetrical and gabled with carved pendulous bargeboards with shamrock or trefoil terminals, built in random rubble with harling.