Ashton, Fathom Line, Newry, Co Armagh

Ashton is a pleasantly situated late 18th-century Georgian house located west of Fathom Line in Co Armagh, aligned north-west to south-east. The building has been much altered and internally refurbished, retaining few original interior features of particular interest, though it preserves an impressive entrance doorcase and original door as significant surviving elements.

The house is a two-storey structure with three bays, plus attic and basement levels, arranged symmetrically. The principal elevation faces north-east. All walls are constructed of rubble stone with wet-dash render and paint finish. The pitched roof is covered in artificial slate with terracotta ridge tiling and carries four chimneys, two to each gable. Four skylights pierce the front pitch and three the rear. Modern metal rainwater goods are installed, with an advanced eaves course, and a downpipe positioned to the left of the main façade.

The entrance is located at ground floor centre and is accessed by eleven steeply rising steps of cement-rendered granite flanked by wet-dashed dwarf walls with cast-iron railings. The Georgian doorcase is constructed of painted stone and features Doric columns set on plinth blocks supporting an open pediment. Within the pediment sits a spider-web fanlight. The door itself is a timber nine-panelled example with two horizontal panels at the top and one at the bottom. To either side of the doorcase, at ground floor level, is a window within each of the three bays.

The basement, which sits at ground level, has three openings: one to either side of the entrance steps and a third behind the arch of the steps. The left gable contains a glazed door at basement level accessed from a paved yard enclosed by a wet-dashed wall. At left of this gable is a window in a plain reveal with a granite cill at ground level. A small boiler house is attached to the gable between the door and window. Both the ground and first floors have two windows positioned at their left and right ends.

All windows throughout the building are modern top-hung casements set in smooth rendered reveals. Those on the principal elevation feature bull's-eye glazing and peaked heads to their reveals; windows to other elevations are plain except where otherwise stated. Cills are of granite. The first floor is composed of three windows, diminished in height, aligned above the ground floor openings.

The rear elevation features a projecting bay between ground and first floor levels with a catslide roof, supported on three concrete pillars over a recessed ground floor level now occupied by a timber-glazed porch. The basement level here is roughly cemented and has two modern top-hung casement windows. The projecting bay has a window to the left of centre in its south-west-facing rear wall and a narrow window to its right cheek; the left cheek is blank. At ground floor level, either side of the projecting bay is a window, that to the immediate left being a single casement and that to the right a pair of timber casements. The first floor has windows at both ends.

The right gable is symmetrical, with a window at left and right of each floor, including the basement, whose cills sit at ground level. A high curved wall abuts the right gable, similar in construction to that on the left, enclosing the rear yard and linking to an outbuilding set to the right of the house.

The house stands within maturely planted and landscaped gardens and is approached via a long winding drive that rises over a small single-span bridge. The front garden is set at a lower level and is accessed by steps which echo the line of the entrance steps. A cast-iron water pump stands in the garden and bears the maker's name "Down….Drogheda".

Historically, the house is cited as Ashton on the 1835 Ordnance Survey map. It is noted in the first Valuation book, dating to approximately 1835, as being occupied by Henry Ogle. The house's dimensions are given as 50 feet by 30 feet by 25 feet. These measurements accord with those recorded in the 1862 Valuation when the premises were occupied by Francis Ogle. The Ogle family vacated the property in 1887, when William Eakine took occupation. The rateable valuation fell from £22 to £20 in 1913 and further to £15 in 1919.