163 South Promenade ('Widows' Row'), Newcastle, Ballaghbeg, Co Down, BT33 0HA

163 South Promenade, Newcastle, is a small two-storey house forming part of 'Widows' Row', a terrace of 12 dwellings built in 1843. The terrace was constructed to house the families of local fishermen who drowned in a severe storm off the coast in January 1843, in which 46 Newcastle men perished, leaving behind 27 widows, 118 orphans and 21 dependants. An appeal and a substantial donation from the trustees of the Annesley Estate raised sufficient funds for the construction.

Number 163 is positioned near the north-west end of the terrace on the south-west side of South Promenade at the southern edge of Newcastle. The front north-east facing façade features a timber-sheeted stable door to the left of the ground floor, with a multi-pane vernacular Georgian fixed light window to its right. The first floor has a similar multi-pane window set within a gabled half-dormer. The front façade is finished in rough cast render and painted, though partly obscured by ivy growth. The gabled roof, with overhang and exposed rafter ends, is covered in natural slate. A single rendered chimney stack, shared with the neighbouring property to the north, rises from the roof. The rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC.

Although substantially altered to the rear by a modern two-storey flat-roofed extension that rises above eaves level, the house retains significant original character. The terrace as a whole preserves important vernacular features including the gabled half-dormers, multi-paned windows and the low stone boundary wall enclosing individual front gardens. The listing extends to the house and its front boundary wall. Each property originally comprised two rooms, one to each floor, but most have been considerably enlarged in recent years with modern extensions to the rear.