House N of 42 Old Newry Road, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5BQ

This is a small, attractive vernacular house, likely dating from the early 19th century (around 1800-1819), located up a lane off Old Newry Road in the townland of Finnard, near Rathfriland. It has been slightly modernised and is currently used for agricultural storage.

The house is a single storey with two bays. It has a pitched roof with rendered and coped chimneys on each gable. The front roof slope is covered in asbestos slates, while the rear slope is natural slate. A raised masonry eaves course carries modern plastic rainwater goods. The principal elevation faces southeast. The walls are harled over rubble stone. The left bay features a windbreak porch on its right side, with a monopitch natural slate roof and a vertically and horizontally boarded door. The porch cheeks are blank. A 6/6 exposed box sliding sash window, lacking the bottom sash, is positioned in the remainder of the left bay. The right bay contains a similar window opening, now obscured by a corrugated metal sheet. Both windows have granite cills. Small 1/1 timber framed windows are set at attic level in both the left and right gables. The rear elevation has a doorway located on the right bay and a window opening (with a brick cill) on the left bay, both now covered with sheet metal.

Access to the property is via a pair of wrought iron gates with dog bars, showing plainly detailed verticals with rounded ends and a clasping bar inscribed "WW". Rock faced granite gate piers mark the entrance. The area in front of the house includes similar gates leading to the front field, a pedestrian gate giving access to a garden on the left side of the house, and an open cartway on the right leading to a rear farmyard. Single storey outbuildings built of rubble stone with pitched roofs, and now derelict with stripped roofs, enclose the farmyard to the southwest and northeast.

A building is shown at this location on an Ordnance Survey map from 1834. While the first Valuation map is missing, the house likely matches the dimensions indicated there. It was shown on the 1860 Ordnance Survey map and occupied by William Wright in 1862, with a valuation of £1.5s.0d. Subsequent valuation revision books from 1866-1929 confirm no significant changes.