'Rockmore', 163 Central promenade, Newcastle, Ballaghbeg, Co Down, BT33 0EU

'Rockmore', 163 Central Promenade, Newcastle, is a relatively large and unusual single-storey hipped-roof house with origins before 1815, though its current picturesque holiday cottage appearance — with a canted bay, gabled porch and shaped bargeboards — dates from the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The property also has a large basement and a substantial two-storey return to the rear. It sits on a rise formed by a rock outcrop to the east of Central Promenade, to the south of Newcastle town centre.

The front façade faces east and is asymmetrical. Slightly left of centre is a shallow timber porch with a panelled door, a large semicircular fanlight, narrow double pilaster jambs and narrow fixed-light side windows. The porch has a gabled, slated roof with decorative bargeboards, a finial and saw-tooth clay ridge tiles. Immediately to the left of the porch is a single-storey canted bay with a hipped slated roof, bargeboards, tiles and finial matching the porch. Each face of the bay has a sash window set on a cill course. To the right of the porch are three unevenly spaced sash windows with semicircular heads and moulded surrounds. The right-hand third of this portion of the façade represents the front of an extension added around 1910.

The south elevation is largely blank, except for two small sash basement windows fitted with metal bars. Towards the left of this elevation the façade projects slightly, as described below in relation to the rear. The north elevation comprises the north face of the main hipped-roof section, the gable of a two-storey rear section, and the north face of a rear return beyond. The north face of the main hipped-roof section has a semicircular-headed doorway to the right, with a panelled and glazed door, fanlight and moulded surround matching the front right windows. The north gable of the two-storey rear section is set back from the line of this façade. It has two small windows at ground-floor level — which sits considerably lower than the ground floor of the main front section — with a sash frame to the left and a modern frame to the right. At upper level is a semicircular-headed window matching those at the front. The north face of the rear return has three windows at low ground-floor level, one of which has a modern frame to the right and sash frames elsewhere. At first-floor level are two sash windows. At the far right of this face is a narrow open passage leading through the return.

The rear elevation is complex. At the far left is the only exposed section of the rear of the main block, which has a partly glazed modern door. Immediately to its right is the exposed upper half of the gable of the return, with two sash windows. The south face of the return has a sash window at first-floor level and two smaller sash windows at ground-floor level. To the right of the return is the rear of the two-storey section, which has a single-storey lean-to addition fitted with a large modern picture window and a partly glazed door. The short south face of the lean-to has a small window with a modern frame. At first-floor level on the rear of the two-storey section is another large picture window. The south gable of the two-storey section has a small window to the left at ground-floor level. To the right of this is a short flat-roofed infill linking to a large single-storey projection further to the south. The infill has a glazed door. The single-storey projection culminates to the west in a canted, hipped-roof bay with a sash window to each outer face and a glazed door to the central face. The south-west face of the bay extends down to basement level, where there is a window with a modern frame; a wrought-iron railing surrounds the light well serving this window. The south face of the projection extends beyond the line of the south face of the main front section. The two-storey rear section has a small section of east-facing exposed façade which, looking into the rear of the roof of the main front section, cannot be seen from the east, but does contain a small four-pane window that lights the stairwell.

The external walls are finished in a mixture of lined and plain render, painted throughout. Trellises are attached to the front and north faces of the main front section. The pitched roof sections are covered in natural slate with red clay saw-tooth ridge tiles to most ridges, and most areas of roof have a slight overhang; the main front section has decorative eaves. The main front section has a small Velux window to the rear and three rendered chimney stacks. There is a further similar chimney stack to the two-storey rear section and another to the single-storey south-west projection. Rainwater goods appear to be mainly metal.

Immediately to the north-west of the house is a large two-storey outbuilding, rendered and painted on its south and west faces, with various window and door openings; its north face is in unrendered random rubble. A small single-storey flat-roofed shed stands against the gable of the rear return; this shed was once part of a larger outbuilding that was largely demolished in recent years.

The history of the house is well documented. A map of part of Lord Annesley's Newcastle estate drawn up in 1815 shows a house on this site with a short rear return, recorded as belonging to a William Law. The Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows a similarly shaped building, and the contemporary valuation records describe it as being reasonably old — perhaps thirty years or more — at that date, confirming it as the same structure shown on the 1815 map. The valuers recorded it as single-storey with a taller return, and this earlier building evidently underlies the house as it stands today, a conclusion also supported by the current owners' title deeds. The house remained in the Law family until the middle of the 19th century, when it was acquired by the Reverend William Steel, who is recorded as the occupant in the 1863 valuation. By at least the 1880s the property, by then known as 'Rockmore', had passed to the Murphy family, who remained there until around 1920. It was during the Murphys' ownership that the house acquired its picturesque character, with the front and rear bays and the porch added around the 1880s and the main section extended northwards around 1910. A photograph of Rockmore dating from around 1900, held in the Laurence Collection at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, shows the house before the northward extension was carried out.