West Estate Workers’ House, Mourne Park Demesne, Newry Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34

These are two attractive and largely original workers’ houses dating from the early 19th century, forming an integral part of the Mourne Park demesne. They are situated to the north of a walled garden.

The left-hand house is one of a pair of picturesque, symmetrical estate houses. It is of one-and-a-half storeys and two bays. It has a gabled roof covered in natural slate, with plain projecting bargeboards and eaves. A coped brick chimney serves both properties, while there is a chimney to each gable. Rainwater goods are a mix of cast iron and plastic. The walls are constructed of squared and coursed granite rubble, with brick dressings around the openings. All windows have finely dressed granite cills. The main façade faces southwest. The ground floor has a sheeted and painted entrance door on the left, sheltered by a slated gabled hood supported on timber brackets. To its left is a six-pane casement window, and to its right is a 6/6 sliding sash window with horns. Above the sash window is a smaller 6/6 sliding sash window in a dormer rising from the eaves. The right-hand house is a mirror image of this. The left gable is blank and adjoins a single-storey lean-to with a lean-to natural slate roof and random rubble granite walls. The west-facing wall of the lean-to has a small window, now infilled; the cheeks of the lean-to are blank. The rear ground floor has a large 6/6 sliding sash window on the right and a sheeted back door on the left, with a small six-pane casement window to the left of the door. A 6/6 sash window in a dormer is positioned on the first floor to the right, above the ground floor window. An original cobbled path with dressed granite edging runs in front of the houses, leading towards the walled garden opposite.

The houses are depicted on an Ordnance Survey map of 1834. They were constructed between 1820 and 1839 and are of commercial ownership. Their architectural interest derives from their style, proportions, ornamentation, plan form, quality, survival of interior features, setting, and group value, as well as their local historical interest.