21 Cloughmore Road Rostrevor Newry BT34 3EN

21 Cloughmore Road, Rostrevor

This late Victorian villa was built in 1897–98 by developer David Mahood on the south side of Rostrevor, originally named 'Sea View'. The architect is not known. The house sits on the south-eastern edge of the village within a well-maintained garden, set behind a 1.8 metre tall random rubble wall that overlooks Kilbroney Park. A curving drive opens from Cloughmore Road through an entrance with tall square-plan rendered pillars topped with stone coping and a metal gate. To the rear, a two-storey outbuilding addresses Victoria Square. The building and garden have been well maintained, with the elementary form, massing, and substantial quantities of original fabric surviving both externally and internally, preserving the integrity of the composition.

The detached three-bay two-storey villa has a compact symmetrical footprint. The front (south) elevation is dominated by two full-height canted bays flanking a central doorway. The main body is square in plan with small full-height square projections to the east and west, while to the rear (north) sits a two-storey gable return and a single-storey monopitch roof return.

The front elevation is symmetrical, centred on a wrought iron entrance porch and balcony. Two steps lead to a flat-arched main entrance opening with rendered corner pilasters and profiled render surround. The doorway contains single panelled timber doors set within glass sidelights and a tripartite fanlight. Above, a porch balcony with decorative cast-iron railings is supported by three slender cast-iron columns on either side of the entrance and is accessed from a first floor flat-arched opening with narrow double doors and fanlight. Both canted bays have square-headed window openings with one-over-one sliding sash timber windows. Quoins at the main corners are more heavily rusticated below the projecting first-floor sill course.

The east elevation has single flat-arched window openings at ground and first floor containing one-over-one timber sash windows within the main body. A full-height square bay projects from the southern portion, with paired flat-arched window openings at ground and first floor containing one-over-one sash windows. Quoins appear at the corners of the projection and the north-west corner of the main body, heavily rusticated beneath the sill course.

The west elevation has two single flat-arched window openings at ground level and two at first floor, all containing one-over-one sash windows. The northern portion extends slightly from the main body in a full-height square projection. Quoins appear at front-facing corners of the main body and projection, but not at the rear north-east corner. A rendered wall and gate at the north-east corner separate the rear of the property. The two-storey rear return has one-over-one sliding sash windows at ground and first floor and a single top-hung casement window in the single-storey lean-to.

The rear elevation is less formally arranged. A double-storey return on the right has a slate pitched roof with its ridge set beneath the eaves of the main roof, with a lean-to rear entrance lobby attached to the gable. A central round-headed opening at first floor houses a replacement stained glass tripartite window with peripheral muntins. On the left is a modest single-storey return.

Walls are finished with lined render with rustication to the ground floor (except the north-east corner and rear returns) and a first-floor level sill course with in-out quoins to south, east and west. The rear returns are more sparsely treated with unlined render and no quoins or sill course. Stone sills are painted. The natural Welsh slate main roof is hipped to the canted bays with a central enclosed valley, and boxed-in eaves with render coving. Two tall rendered chimneystacks with stone cope stones each carry four pots, one of which has been replaced with a modern flue. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout. Window openings are a mix of square-headed and flat-arched types, mostly containing one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows. The eaves feature painted timber with cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered walls have rendered quoins, a base plinth, and a first-floor sill course.

The rear yard contains a rectangular two-storey outbuilding to the west with roughcast walls and slated pitched roof. Its west elevation has a single square-headed opening with a replacement casement window at first floor. The north elevation is blank. The south elevation has a small outbuilding attached. The east elevation has three square-headed openings at first floor and two doorway openings at ground floor, one with a sidelight, situated next to a small outhouse.

The first occupants recorded in the 1901 census were Margaret and Catherine Cull, unmarried siblings aged 46 and 43, with the house noted as a first-class dwelling with 14 rooms in use. By 1911, Margaret and Mary Cull are recorded as residents. The property was renamed 'Greenwood' by 1929. It was offered for sale in spring 1935 as a 'splendid residence'. Dr. Henry McLaughlin is listed as householder from 1936, and Dr. Brian McLaughlin lived here from at least 1964 until at least 1972. More recent changes to the rear have little impact on the overall character of the dwelling.