Farm complex near 9 Cavan Rd, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5EG

Farm complex near 9 Cavan Road, Rathfriland, Newry, County Down

This vernacular farm building, although in very poor condition, demonstrates the evolution of rural domestic architecture and is therefore of some historical interest, though not of sufficient significance to warrant statutory protection.

The main house is a small two-storey, two-bay structure set within a complex of outbuildings at the end of a lane on the south side of Cavan Road. The pitched natural slate roof has been largely stripped of slates. The left gable is cement rendered with rendered skews and a cement rendered chimney, while the right gable has been built upon to support the higher gable of an adjacent outbuilding and contains a second similar chimney. Semicircular cast iron rainwater goods run along the advanced brick eaves.

The north-facing front elevation is built in granite field stone, laid randomly and originally lime rendered, though the render is now mostly worn away. A distinct break in the stonework between the left and right bays indicates that the left bay is a later addition. The front entrance is contained within a gabled porch abutting the left end of the right bay. The porch has a pitched natural slate roof and lime rendered brick walls, with a doorway in its front gable. The original door was sheeted timber with an external half door, both now gone except for hinges and some timbers. The left cheek of the porch is blank, while the right cheek has a small three-paned fixed timber window with horizontal divisions. To the right of the porch at ground floor level is a pair of steel casements with a concrete cill, set within an enlarged original opening. The wall around this opening has been cement rendered up to the sill level of the first-floor windows. A similar steel casement window is found at ground floor on the left bay. Both ground-floor windows are now sheeted over with corrugated iron. Each bay has a small window on the first floor, positioned in line with the original openings below. These are 6/3 exposed box sliding sashes with horns and cement rendered cills, set at floor level with their heads formed by the advanced brick eaves course. The left gable of the main block is blank, but render marks suggest it was formerly abutted by a corrugated roofed lean-to.

The rear elevation of the main block is abutted on the left by a lean-to return with a corrugated metal roof that meets the main block just below eaves level. The rear wall of this return is also corrugated metal and blank. Both cheeks are cement rendered concrete blockwork; the left is blank and the right has a doorway with door now gone. A small 1/1 sliding sash window with no cill serves the ground floor on the right. The right gable of the house has been built upon and now forms the party wall with the adjacent outbuilding, which incorporates a third bay of the house.

The two-storey outbuilding is approximately three times the length of the house and slightly higher, with the same depth. It has a pitched natural slate roof and a chimney on its left gable serving the house. Semicircular cast iron rainwater goods run along its advanced brick eaves. The walls are unrendered, roughly-dressed granite random rubble brought to courses, with some brick dressings to openings. A break in the wall where it joins the house shows this building to be later in date than the house. There are three ground-floor openings: to the left is a 6/6 sliding sash window, boarded over, serving the third bay of the house; the centre has a sheeted timber door; and to the right a steel I beam has been inserted to create a wide modern opening with a top-hung corrugated metal rolling door. The first floor has a three-quarter height sheeted timber loading door to the left, a small sash window with horns and no cill boarded over at centre, and a similar larger sash window to the right end. The right gable is blank at ground floor and has a sheeted loading door on the first floor. The rear elevation has four square ventilation holes at ground floor from centre to right, and at the extreme right a small 1/1 sash window serving the third bay of the house. At first floor centre is a three-quarter height loading door, with window openings to the left and right ends.

North of the house is a yard area enclosed by two ranges of single-storey outbuildings with stone walls of very similar detail to the two-storey outbuilding and corrugated metal roofs. To the south of the house is a similar ruinous outbuilding, and to the west is a Dutch barn with an enamel plaque reading 'Supplied by W. G. Hagan Lisburn'.

A building is shown on the 1833 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map but does not appear in the 1838 first valuation, indicating a valuation of less than £5. The existing structure likely comprises some or all of the original building. Wall breaks indicate that the kitchen formed an original single-bay house, probably extended with the addition of a parlour. The large outbuilding, constructed against the right gable of the house, is of much later nineteenth-century construction. During the twentieth century a rear scullery was added and the ground-floor windows enlarged.