Former Gardener's House, Narrow Water Castle, Newry Road, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2PN

The Former Gardener's House at Narrow Water Castle is a substantial early 19th-century residence forming part of the wider estate grouping, which includes a walled garden and associated outbuildings.

The property comprises a two-storey, three-bay main house with single-storey returns and outbuildings. The principal southeast-facing elevation features a hipped natural slate roof with advanced eaves and exposed timber rafter tails carrying half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered granite coped wallheads with chimneys terminate each end elevation. The walls are finished in dry dash with stepped stucco quoins.

The entrance is contained within a slightly narrower central bay, accessed via a single concrete step leading to a shallow porch with pitched natural slate roof, modern boxed timber eaves, and cement dashed walls. The porch front gable contains a semi-elliptical headed doorway with a reproduction double-leaf timber door, each leaf having two raised and fielded panels with bolection mouldings. Flanking the doorway are plain glazed sidelights with timber aprons, each framed by timber pilasters with console brackets supporting a moulded timber cornice. A semi-elliptical headed fanlight is recessed above the door.

The ground floor flanking bays each contain a 6/6 exposed-box sliding sash window with horns and granite cills. First-floor windows are 6/3 sashes, diminished in height. The rear elevation, facing northwest into the walled garden, is rendered as the principal facade. It contains 2/2 sliding sash windows to the left and right bays, with two tiny 1/1 sashes to the central bay. First-floor rear windows are 2/2 sashes.

A single-storey four-bay return abuts the left elevation, with pitched natural slate roof hipped at the southwest end and advanced eaves with plain timber eaves board. Its southeast-facing front elevation contains a recessed four-panelled reproduction door in the third bay and three diminishing 2/2 exposed-box sliding sash windows with horns and granite cills. The left gable features an exposed tongue-and-groove sheeted soffit with timber rafter tails. The south gable displays modern timber glazed French doors with granite flagged threshold and an octagonal painted masonry opening containing a quatrefoil window.

A single-storey two-bay outbuilding abuts the right elevation of the house. It has a pitched natural slate roof with a rendered central chimneystack, advanced eaves course, and plain timber eaves board carrying half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. The southeast-facing front elevation has three circular ventilation holes infilled with rendered bricks below eaves level. The left bay contains a 2/2 sash window with granite cill; the right bay has a tongue-and-groove sheeted door with modern strap hinges. A lean-to with corrugated metal roof extends from the northeast gable. Its front elevation features a fixed two-paned timber-framed window with margins and rendered walls with brick-dressed openings.

The walled garden, covering 2.3 acres, is enclosed by high rubble stone walls uncoped and brick-lined internally. It has numerous infilled openings on its southeast elevation and open doorways on the northeast and northwest elevations; the southwest elevation is blank.

The estate was created around 1707 when Francis Hall erected Mount Hall. The present form of the gardener's house is shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map. A 1970 historical monument building survey photograph shows the porch formerly featured a decorative fretted 19th-century timber bargeboard with finial, and the front door was a four-panelled design with bolection mouldings, a transom with rounded top corners, and two-paned round-headed sidelights flanking the transom. Although altered in recent years—particularly the porch, door, and eaves details—the building retains strong character and contributes significantly to the overall estate grouping.