Mount Saint Columb, Rostrevor Road, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3RT

Mount Saint Columb, Rostrevor Road, Warrenpoint

This building has been demolished since this record was made.

An 18th-century two-storey house with semi-basement, originally a rectory, extended considerably and set within a much eroded demesne. The house is square in plan with a hipped artificial slate roof featuring four equal ridges and a central valley. The front and rear ridges carry two cement-rendered and coped chimneys, each with several pots. Overhanging timber eaves are supported on pairs of cantilevered timber brackets along the soffit. Half-round metal rainwater goods are fitted throughout. The walls are wet-dashed and painted, and are advanced and chamfered to basement level.

The south-east front elevation rises at ground level, obscuring the basement. A flight of five post-World War Two terrazzo steps, enclosed by sweeping balustrades, rises to a terrazzo threshold with cross inset. The entrance door comprises twelve glazed panels with 1x6 paned sidelights and a radial fanlight, all modern. The opening is deeply recessed and concave, with a rusticated stucco key-block. The ground floor left and right bays each contain a 6/6 sash window with painted granite cill and smooth rendered architrave. The three first-floor bays each have a 6/3 sash window, in line with those below but diminished in height.

The south-west elevation has three 6/6 windows to both ground and first floors. Window openings to the semi-basement are blocked up. The rear north-west elevation is abutted by a pair of lower two-storey returns. It contains a basement door at ground level and is blank above. The right return is modern and links to a nursing home. The left return has a flat roof obscured by an embattled parapet. Its north-east cheek is flush with the north-east elevation of the main block and similarly dashed. It has a pair of four-panelled doors at ground floor right (true ground level) and a small window to their left. Its first floor has two small 2/2 sash windows.

The north-east elevation of the main house features a two-storey curved bay to the middle bay, detailed as the main walls. The remaining wall to left and right has a single window to each floor: those to ground floor are 6/6 sashes and those to first floor are 6/3 sashes. The bay itself has three windows on each floor. To the ground floor is a 9/9 sash to the front and a 6/6 to each side. At first floor it has three 6/3 sashes with modern obscured and coloured glass.

Setting and associated features

Abutting the rear north-west of the house and advancing in three directions is a large derelict post-World War Two nursing home complex with no features of interest except for its chapel. The demesne is much developed with new housing that has encroached close to the house, though positioned at a much lower level. The front driveway runs north from Rostrevor Road, following its original path despite housing development along its lower length.

To the front of the house, opposite the main entrance, is a small formal garden enclosed to the south-east end by a bow-fronted balustrade. This tops a bow-fronted rubble stone retaining wall that supports the earth embanked against the front basement. Two flights of curving steps run down its front. At their base is a large modern concrete retaining wall below which is the modern housing development.

To the south-west of the house is a copse of mature trees containing gravel paths and three grottoes. Each grotto is concrete with a single small bay and open front. Thin painted walls on three sides support concrete roofs—one has a segmental pediment, the others have gable pediments. All have cross finials (broken) and small cast-iron skylights. Internally each has a tapering concrete pedestal decorated with an embossed Celtic Cross but without its statue.

The gravel paths lead uphill to the burial ground of the Alexian Brothers. It has a modern dashed boundary wall and modern concrete paving. Its gates are tall and wrought iron, dating to the early 20th century. To the left, the wall reduces to permit pedestrian entry. The burial ground is roughly square in plan. At the end opposite the gates there is a statue of the Crucifixion and a dressed granite memorial inscribed: "SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF / MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION OF / ALEXIAN BROTHERS / WHOSE MORTAL REMAINS ARE HERE INTERRED / WHO FOR MANY YEARS SERVED / THE AGED AND INFIRM OF WARRENPOINT / MAY THEY REST IN PEACE / PRAY FOR THEM". Along the side walls are ten similar gravestones marking individual burial plots, ranging in date from 1941 to 1991.