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

Packolet House is an early 19th-century gentleman's residence of two storeys and two bays, with a large two-and-a-half-storey rear return. It stands in mature grounds on the northwest side of the Ballyardle Road and Corcreaghan Road crossroads.

Main Block

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

The principal southwest-facing facade overlooks the garden and features two full-height recessed panels, each with a semi-elliptical head—the left panel wider than the right. At ground floor, each panel contains a one-storey bow window with a flat concrete roof, curved dressed granite plinth, and full-height timber windows measuring four panes wide by three panes high. Each pane is of curved glass with the top row opening. Thin timber glazing bars separate the panes, and the middle pair were formerly French windows but are now fixed closed. At first floor, each recessed bay contains a single 1/1 sliding sash window with horns and vertical margins on a painted granite cill that spans the full width of the recessed panel.

The northwest (left) elevation has two recessed wall panels detailed as on the main front, with the right panel slightly wider. The main wall and 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. The front has a pair of full-height French windows with transoms above, and each side has a fixed two-pane window with transom. Boxed eaves support semicircular metal gutters. Centred at first floor is an 8/8 sliding sash window without horns on a painted granite cill. The southeast elevation of the rear return advances from the left corner of this elevation.

The northeast (rear) elevation of the main house projects forward to centre and right under a catslide roof. The left wall is abutted at ground floor by a small extension and is dashed and blank above. The catslide has a natural slate roof continuing from the main roof, with a modern skylight. The walls are dashed to match the main block. The left side is abutted at ground floor by the single-storey extension, and above are two small 2/2 sliding sashes. The front wall has four ground floor openings: from left, two small 3/6 top-hung modern windows; a modern glazed and panelled door with two raised and fielded panels below nine fixed panes; and a fourth opening matching the first two. At first floor, above the second window from left, is a large 8/8 sliding sash window without horns on a painted granite cill. To its right is a smaller 6/6 sliding sash with exposed box, without horns, on a painted granite cill. The right elevation abuts the two-and-a-half-storey return.

The small extension at left has a shallow natural slate monopitch roof with 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 left and a two-pane modern fixed window to right. It advances slightly beyond the catslide, its right side being blank.

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

The lean-to porch is timber, ten bays wide and two 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 above; the seventh bay contains a partially glazed door with transom. Some windows open. Each of its two side bays is identical, with windows matching the facade. Internally it has a modern ceramic tiled floor and houses a very mature South American creeper.

Return

The rear return is two and a half storeys and aligned northwest to southeast. It has a hipped natural slate roof with a rendered two-pot chimney with gabled base rising from the wallhead at either end, and a broad four-pot rendered chimney at the centre of the ridge. Rainwater goods and walls 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 to top floor level. This has a hipped natural slate roof and a modern 6/6 casement window.

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

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

The northeast (rear) elevation is dashed and painted and abutted to the right by a low single-storey return. All windows have painted granite cills. On the remaining wall at ground floor left is a small 6/6 top-hung casement window, and to centre is a similar much larger window. At first floor left is a 6/6 sliding sash without horns, and to centre (set to the right of the ground floor centre window) is a canted oriel window with a flat leaded roof, dashed base on a concrete bracket, and a pair of casements with transoms on its front and a single casement and transom on each side. A concrete cill is 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-pane centrally pivoted window and the right is a pair of timber casements. To centre, over the oriel, is a dormer breaking the wallhead. It has a pitched natural slate roof with fretted timber bargeboards and finial, sheeted apex, and blank sides. It contains a pair of two-pane timber casement windows.

The return abutting the ground floor right of this elevation has a hipped natural slate roof with skylight, half-round metal bracketed gutters, and painted wet-dashed walls. The left side has a modern door and two windows (both 3/6 top-hung). Its right side has a modern glazed and sheeted door. The gable end has a pair of four-pane casements to the right and is abutted to the left by a single-storey outhouse. This has a monopitched natural slate roof and semicircular cast iron gutters on wrought brackets. The walls are painted wet-dashed. There is a door where it meets the extension and a modern casement window on its right side (into the walled garden). The right side 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 dormer light. This has a 6/6 fixed window to the southeast face.

Setting

The front gates to Corcreaghan Road are contained 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 gate is hung on slender octagonal cast iron posts with overhanging caps. The gate is horizontal in design with vertical dog bars, curving braces, and decorative scrolls to the top. From here the 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 of the house. The terrace in front of the house has two short flights of granite steps to the lawn. The lawn contains a small octagonal timber garden house with a felted swept pyramidal roof, horizontal sheeted timber walls, two pairs of two-pane casement windows, and a pair of glazed and panelled doors. At the centre of the lawn is a sundial comprising an inscribed slate inset 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 latter has 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 Corcreaghan Road and Ballyardle Road. This wall corner is canted to the Corcreaghan Road and has a niche with semi-elliptical head containing a drinking trough (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, and 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. The 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-pane 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, with a dashed chimney on the ridge and three cast iron skylights on the left pitch. Rainwater goods are a combination of metal and plastic. The walls are dashed. Its right elevation is blank. Its gable has a modern up-and-over garage door. Its left elevation is dashed, with the following from left to right: six-pane fixed window, sheeted door, nine-pane window, half door, nine-pane window (all ground floor windows centrally pivoted). The wall advances slightly: sheeted door, linear three-pane window. At extreme left on the upper floor is a two-pane centrally pivoted window. At the apex on the gable on the main block is a one-pane fixed window.

The left (east) gable of the two-storey outbuilding is abutted by a dashed brick lean-to garage with monopitch asbestos slate roof, two skylights, and half-round plastic rainwater goods. A pair of sheeted doors is on the right side. A two-light window is on the left side.

The south elevation of the main 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 with two fixed panes and 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. It has a natural slate roof, dashed walls, nine- and six-pane windows, and sheeted doors.