Clermont, 44 Rostrevor Road, Warrenpoint, Newry, BT34 3RU

Clermont is an impressive Gothic Revival house dating from around 1900, situated on the north side of Rostrevor Road with its principal U-shaped plan opening southward toward the sea. The house is two storeys tall, substantially unaltered, and of high quality throughout.

The steeply pitched natural slate roof has crested terracotta ridges and exposed decorative rafter tails supporting half-round metal gutters. The chimneys are tall Tudor-style octagonal stacks in red brick, with slender shafts and corbelled copings, grouped and tied together in four arrangements: four stacks on the rear north gable of the west roof; a pair on the west pitch of the west roof between the central and right bays; a pair on the ridge of the south roof between the two bays; and a pair between the central and left bays of the east roof. Each external pitch of the U-shaped roof — west, south, and east — has decorative wall-head dormers, and the south and east elevations have bay windows with free-standing roofs. All walls are lime rendered and painted, and all elevations except the north yard elevation and the basecourse carry a moulded Gothic stringcourse between ground and first floors. Throughout the building, windows are segmental-headed 1/1 sliding sashes with horns, stop-end chamfered arrises, and swept stooled cills, unless noted otherwise. Ground floor windows have a fine moulded stringcourse that rises over their heads as a segmental hood mould. First floor windows have similar individual segmental hoods with foliated stops.

West Elevation

The west elevation is three bays wide and contains the main entrance within a single-storey timber porch on the central bay. The porch is very ornate. It has a steeply pitched natural slate roof with rafter tails, gutters, and ridges matching those of the main roof, and its gable has a bead-moulded bargeboard. It rests on a finely dressed chamfered granite basecourse. The heavy timber frame is entirely stop-end chamfered and painted, and advances forward as four Gothic buttresses framing a pair of narrow central doors with sidelights. Each door has a single raised fielded and decoratively chamfered bottom panel. The top panel is decoratively chamfered and glazed with small rectangular leaded coloured glass quarries. The sidelights are broad, with diagonally tongue-and-groove sheeted aprons; their windows are glazed two-by-two with cusped-headed transoms and glazed trefoil spandrels, all in leaded coloured glass. Above the doors, in the gable apex, is a radial fanlight with six coloured and leaded glass segments each having a cusped end. Filling the remainder of the gable around the fanlight are numerous glazed quatrefoils and cusped lights set into the heavy chamfered timber frame. The porch cheeks are three bays wide and detailed in the same manner as the front sidelights. The left bay of the west elevation has a single ground floor window. The right bay has a pair of glazed timber doors to the centre at ground floor and is abutted by a glazed conservatory. At first floor, the left and right bays each have a window with a wall-head gable over, carrying a moulded bargeboard with trefoil insets. Above the porch at first floor, a pair of round-headed narrow 1/1 sashes sits below a large gabled dormer with a decorative bargeboard inset with trefoils and cusps.

Conservatory

The conservatory is a lean-to structure whose left cheek abuts the right cheek of the porch and is of similar depth. It has a glazed timber-framed roof with raised ventilator glazing beneath a leaded roof where it meets the main house. The roof has ten panes divided by timber ribs, and the ventilator has five pairs of two-paned lights that can be opened using internal pulleys. The front elevation of the conservatory has five divisions: the central one has a pair of doors with decorative stop-end chamfered bottom panels and a quadrant-glazed top pane — the two doors together reading as a semicircular-headed opening. Each of the remaining four divisions has a pair of cusped-headed windows with glazed spandrels and herringbone tongue-and-groove sheeted apron panels. The right gable of the conservatory has a large fixed picture window with cusped-headed lights over.

South Elevation

The south elevation, forming the base of the U, is two bays wide and faces the road and sea. The left bay has a two-storey canted bay window with a steeply sloping octagonal natural slate roof, fish-scale lead trim to the apex, and a decorative metal finial; each cant has a single window to each floor, all sharing a common cill. The right bay has a single-storey rectangular bay with a common cill, flat roof behind a blocking course with moulded coping, two front windows, and single windows to each cheek. Above this bay, two windows sit under a decorative gable matching that of the central bay of the west elevation.

East Elevation

The east elevation is three bays wide, each diminishing in width from left to right. The left bay is identical to the right bay of the south elevation, but its decorative gable spans the full width of the bay. The central bay has a projecting two-storey bow window with three curving windows to each floor on continuous cill courses, topped by a conical natural slate roof with fish-scale lead trim to the apex and a decorative metal finial. The right bay has a single window to each floor, above which is a decorative gable matching those to the left and right bays of the east elevation.

Rear (North) Elevation

The rear elevation presents three gables, all with moulded bargeboards. The left gable has a pair of small 2/2 sashes — all windows here are flat-headed — set to the right side on both floors, and is abutted at ground floor left by the south gable of a single-storey outbuilding enclosing the east side of the small rear yard. The central gable projects slightly forward from those to either side; it has a small 2/1 sash window at ground floor and a large semicircular-headed 4/8 spoke-headed sash window with leaded and coloured glass at first floor. The right gable is blank and is abutted at ground floor by a one-and-a-half-storey return whose roof and walls are detailed to match the main block. The left cheek of the return, facing the yard, has a plain half door and a 2/2 sash window. The end north gable of the return has a 2/2 sash window to each floor, the ground floor one set to the right. The right elevation of the return is flush with the west front of the main house and has a single segmental-headed sash window with hood and foliated stops, positioned between ground and upper floors.

Outbuildings and Garden

The small rear yard is enclosed by an L-shaped single-storey outbuilding with a pitched natural slate roof and rendered and painted walls. Its left east face is flush with the east elevation of the main house. It has two modern timber windows and a modern door. The base of the L faces north and has a metal-framed window. The right cheek and right gable are blank. The yard-facing south wall has two tongue-and-groove sheeted doors and a 2/2 sash window.

The front garden is medium sized, lawned to the south and east, and enclosed on all sides by stone walling. It is maturely planted with shrubs and trees, with paths around the house and two large Grecian stone urns. In the northeast corner of the garden stands a small timber garden house: an octagonal structure on a solid rounded base with a pitched hexagonal felt roof. Seven of its faces each have two-by-two paned windows with margin panes and six-paned mouth-organ transoms; the remaining face, to the northwest, is open and forms the doorway. Internally it has a timber bench running around seven sides. Just northwest of the house is an underground air raid shelter dating from the Second World War, which was not inspected. To the rear northwest there is a large, much-altered farmyard of no architectural interest, and to the northeast there is a modern open-air swimming pool.

The boundary wall to the road on the west is of rock-faced granite blockwork with rusticated copings. A curved gate screen at the west end of the road boundary is detailed in the same manner, and ashlar granite gate piers carry decorative cast-iron gates — one of which is off its hinges — with spiked dog-bars.

Historical Note

The house first appears in the Valuation Revision book for 1900, at which time it was occupied by Susan Warnock. The farmyard does not appear on the 1901–02 Ordnance Survey map but is shown on the 1919 edition.