Packolet House, Corcreaghan Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4JU

Packolet House is an early 19th century gentleman's house, built around 1822 and set in mature grounds at the northwest side of the Ballyardle Road and Corcreaghan Road crossroads. It is a two-storey, two-bay main block with a large two-and-a-half-storey rear return. The house is said to have been built by Alexander Chesney, who retired here in 1822 after serving as a customs officer in the locality from 1785, based for much of that time at Prospect Cottage, Annalong. The house takes its name from the Packolet River in South Carolina, USA, where his grandfather had settled in the 1770s. Alexander died here in 1843, aged 88. His son, General Francis Rawdon Chesney, won international fame as the surveyor of the Suez Canal and died at Packolet in 1872. He is buried in the churchyard of Christ Church (Church of Ireland) in Kilkeel, where a memorial cross and an elaborate brass plaque inside the church also commemorate him. A copy of Alexander Chesney's diary has been published, and the family is of considerable local renown.

MAIN BLOCK

The main block has a hipped natural slate roof with a flat top and two painted rendered chimneys running parallel with the garden front, each carrying three octagonal 19th century chimney pots. A third chimney rises from the left cheek, parallel to the facade, with one pot. Projecting eaves course supports scrolled wrought iron brackets holding semicircular cast iron guttering. The walls are painted wet-dashed render throughout.

The principal facade faces southwest and overlooks the garden. This wall has two recessed panels rising full height, each with a semi-elliptical head — the left panel is wider than the right. At ground floor, each panel is filled by a one-storey bow window. Each bow window has a flat concrete roof, a curved dressed granite plinth, and full-height timber windows four panes wide by three panes high. Each pane is of curved glass, the top ones open, and the panes are separated by thin timber glazing bars. The middle pair of panes were formerly French windows but are now fixed closed. At first floor, each recessed bay contains a 1-over-1 sliding sash window with horns and vertical margins, set on a painted granite sill and filling the full width of the recessed panel.

The northwest (left) elevation also has two recessed wall panels detailed as those on the principal facade, the right panel being slightly wider. The main wall and the right panel are blank. The left panel contains a one-storey canted bay window, constructed as a painted timber frame with a shallow hipped natural slate roof. At the front is a pair of full-height French windows with transoms over; each cheek has a fixed two-paned window with a transom over. Boxed eaves with semicircular metal gutters. Centred at first floor is an 8-over-8 sliding sash window without horns and a painted granite sill. Projecting from the left corner of this elevation is the southeast elevation of the rear return.

The northeast (rear) elevation of the main house projects forward to the centre and right under a catslide roof. The catslide has a natural slate roof continuing from the main roof, with a modern skylight. The left wall is abutted at ground floor by a small extension, and above is dashed and blank. The left cheek of the catslide is abutted at ground floor by the single-storey extension; above are two small 2-over-2 sliding sash windows. The front wall of the catslide has four openings at ground floor: from left, two small modern top-hung windows with three-over-six panes; the third opening is a modern glazed and panelled door with two raised and fielded panels below nine fixed panes; the fourth opening, to the extreme right, matches the first two. At first floor, over the second window from the left, is a large 8-over-8 sliding sash window without horns with a painted granite sill. To its right, on the wall between the door and the right window below, is a smaller 6-over-6 sliding sash with an exposed box, no horns, and a painted granite sill. The right elevation of the catslide abuts the two-and-a-half-storey return.

The small extension at the left has a shallow natural slate monopitch roof with a modern skylight and semicircular plastic rainwater goods. It is concealed from the southeast by a dashed concave screen wall. Its front wall is dashed with a sheeted door to the left and a modern two-paned fixed window to the right. It projects slightly beyond the catslide to the right, with a blank right cheek.

The right elevation faces southeast and contains the main entrance door. This wall has two recessed panels rising full height, each with a semi-elliptical head; the right panel is wider than the left and is detailed as those on the principal facade. The main wall framing these panels is blank, except for a small circular four-paned metal-framed window at ground floor right. The entire ground floor of this elevation is abutted by a glazed porch. The recessed left wall panel has no openings. The right recessed panel has an opening on each floor. At ground floor, set to the left inside this panel, is the front door: a four-panelled painted timber door with the top two panels glazed and the bottom two panelled and bolection moulded. To left and right are four-paned sidelights with masonry aprons. The timber jambs flanking the sidelights are fluted, rising from small granite plinth blocks, and support a timber lintel with a fine astragal that projects forward over each jamb. Above is a semi-elliptical headed fanlight with radial glazing bars. At first floor, set to the left of this panel, is a 2-over-2 sliding sash without horns and a painted granite sill, flanked by narrow 1-over-1 sashes forming a tripartite opening.

The lean-to entrance porch is timber, ten bays wide and two bays deep, and appears to date from around 1900. It has a hipped lean-to glazed roof. Its fenestration rests on a painted wet-dashed wall 0.8 metres high. Each bay has two vertical lights with transoms over; the seventh bay contains a partially glazed door with a transom. Some of the windows open. Each of the two side bays is identical, with windows matching the facade treatment. Internally the porch has a modern ceramic tiled floor and houses a very mature South American creeper.

REAR RETURN

The rear return is two-and-a-half storeys and is aligned northwest to southeast. It has a hipped natural slate roof with a rendered two-pot chimney with a gabled base rising from the wallhead at either end of the roof, and a broad four-pot rendered chimney to the centre of the ridge. Rainwater goods and wall finish match the main block.

The southeast end elevation abuts the catslide to the rear of the main block. It is dashed and blank except for a dormer rising from the catslide roof and abutting the gable up to the top floor level. This dormer has a hipped natural slate roof and a modern 6-over-6 casement window.

The principal facade of the return faces southwest to the garden. All windows are sliding sashes with painted granite sills. At ground floor, to the extreme left, is a 6-over-6 window with horns; to the right of centre is an 8-over-8 window with horns. At first floor are three irregularly spaced windows without horns. Breaking the wallhead at the left is a timber dormer with a pitched natural slate roof, blank cheeks, fretted timber bargeboards, a timber finial, and a pair of two-paned casement windows.

The northwest end elevation has, at ground floor left, a 6-over-6 sliding sash window with horns. At first floor, left of centre, is a narrow casement window with a semicircular transom over.

The northeast rear elevation is dashed and painted, abutted to the right by a low single-storey return. All windows have painted granite sills. On the remaining wall at ground floor left is a small top-hung 6-over-6 casement window, and to the centre is a similar but much larger window. At first floor left is a 6-over-6 sliding sash without horns; to the centre (set to the right of the ground floor centre window) is a canted oriel window. The oriel has a flat leaded roof, a dashed base on a concrete bracket, and a pair of casement windows with transoms on its front face and a single casement with transom on each cheek, with a concrete sill shared by all windows. At attic level, at left and right, are single window openings with heads just below the eaves: the left one is a nine-paned centrally pivoted window and that to the right is a pair of timber casements. To the centre, over the oriel, is a dormer breaking the wallhead, with a pitched natural slate roof, fretted timber bargeboards and finial, a sheeted apex, and blank cheeks. It contains a pair of two-paned timber casement windows.

The single-storey return abutting the ground floor right of this elevation has a hipped natural slate roof with a skylight, half-round metal bracketed gutters, and painted wet-dashed walls. Its left cheek has a modern door and two top-hung windows. Its right cheek has a modern glazed and sheeted door. The gable end has a pair of four-paned casements to the right and is abutted to the left by a single-storey outhouse. This outhouse has a monopitch natural slate roof and semicircular cast iron gutters on wrought iron brackets. Walls are painted wet-dashed. There is a door where it meets the extension and a modern casement window on its right cheek, which looks into the walled garden.

The right cheek of the main return is abutted by a one-and-a-half-storey lean-to, and at second floor left by a hipped stairwell with a dormer light containing a fixed 6-over-6 window to its southeast face.

SETTING AND GROUNDS

The front gates to Corcreaghan Road are set within a concave screen wall. The wall and piers are whitewashed and wet-dashed, terminated on either side by plain piers with pyramidal caps and painted wheel stones. The gates are hung on slender octagonal cast iron posts with overhanging caps. The gate design is horizontal with vertical dog bars, curving braces, and decorative scrolls to the top. From the gates a drive leads to the southeast elevation and continues to the rear along the northeast elevation of the return.

To the south and west of the house is a mature, heavily planted garden with exotic trees, a perimeter walk, and a terraced lawn to the principal facade. The terrace in front of the house has two short flights of granite steps down to the lawn. In the lawn stands a small octagonal timber garden house with a felted swept pyramidal roof, horizontal sheeted timber walls, two pairs of two-paned casement windows, and a pair of glazed and panelled doors. To the centre of the lawn is a sundial comprising an inscribed slate set into a dressed granite table supported on a square granite column. It has a scrolled bronze gnomon and is inscribed "1792, By Lee, Lat. 54".

The garden to the front (southwest) of the return is enclosed by a mature yew hedge. To the northeast are the remains of a walled garden with brick walls, two glasshouses, and a water tower abutting to the north. The water tower retains the remains of the metal trestle of an annular wind pump.

In the southeast corner of the site is a farmyard enclosed by the dashed boundary wall to the Corcreaghan Road and Ballyardle Road. The corner of this boundary wall is canted to Corcreaghan Road and has a niche with a semi-elliptical head containing a drinking trough, now non-functioning. The yard is entered from the north through a pair of framed and sheeted timber gates hung on plain piers with pyramidal caps; a gateway to the south has been blocked up. In the wall to its right is a sheeted pedestrian door. The yard contains a one-piece roughly dressed granite water trough.

On the west side of the yard is a two-storey outbuilding with a single-storey return; on the northeast side is a small one-and-a-half-storey outbuilding. The two-storey block is aligned west to east and has a pitched natural slate roof with brick verges and a circular metal ridge vent. Walls are wet-dashed over stone. Its north wall is abutted to the right by the return and has two half-doors at ground floor, a loading door at first floor right, and a nine-paned centrally pivoted casement window at first floor left. The return to the front right is one-and-a-half storeys with a pitched asbestos slate roof, a dashed chimney on the ridge, and three cast iron skylights on the left pitch. Rainwater goods are a combination of metal and plastic. Walls are dashed. The right elevation is blank. The gable has a modern up-and-over garage door. The left elevation is dashed, with the following features from left to right: a six-paned fixed window, a sheeted door, a nine-paned window, a half-door, and a nine-paned window (all ground floor windows centrally pivoted); then a wall advancing slightly, a sheeted door, and a linear three-paned window. At extreme left on the upper floor is a two-paned centrally pivoted window. At the apex of the gable on the main block is a one-paned fixed window.

The left (east) gable of the two-storey outbuilding is abutted by a dashed brick lean-to garage with a monopitch asbestos slate roof, two skylights, and half-round plastic rainwater goods. A pair of sheeted doors sits on the right cheek and a two-light window on the left cheek. The south elevation of the main outbuilding block is abutted by a flight of external stone stairs rising from right to left to a pair of sheeted doors at first floor. At ground floor left are three modern windows, each of two fixed panes with a top-hung transom. To the right of the stairs is a similar window and a sheeted door. At first floor left is a sheeted loading door. The single-storey outbuilding in the northeast corner is L-plan, with a natural slate roof, dashed walls, nine- and six-paned windows, and sheeted doors.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

The 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows a square house with a small return in the middle of its northeast elevation. The 1834 valuation records the dimensions as: house — 34 by 34 by 21.5 feet; return — 15 by 12.5 by 7 feet. These correspond with the present main two-storey block and part of the abutting two-storey rear section. By the time of the 1863 valuation the recorded dimensions had grown considerably, indicating that additions were made between 1834 and 1863. The two-and-a-half-storey return at the northeast corner of the main block corresponds with a return measuring 42 by 15 feet recorded in 1863. The Chesney family appear to have vacated Packolet around 1875, shortly after Francis Rawdon Chesney's death.

Photographs of the house (undated, but believed to pre-date the 1950s garden layout) show it largely as it stands today, with the exception of a timber lean-to veranda on the garden front and different ground floor openings before the bow windows were added. The photographs also show large mature hedges — possibly yew — flanking the steps to the front garden, raised flowerbeds to the front, and a vegetable garden to the rear. A 1956 photograph published in the Mourne Observer shows the bow windows and entrance porch in their present form. At that time the house was occupied by Dr W. J. Hanna, who refurbished it. The present owners have been in occupation since the late 1970s.

A curiosity of the interior is the skin of a small crocodile, said to have been killed by General Chesney, which still hangs in the house. Internally the house retains fine detailing, attractive shutters, and a high proportion of original fabric.