Water Superintendent’s house, 74 Head Road, Silent Valley Reservior Scheme, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4PU

Water Superintendent's House, Silent Valley Reservoir Scheme

This house, built in 1905 by the Belfast City & District Water Commissioners, served as a superintendent's dwelling for the Silent Valley reservoir. It was probably designed by L.L. Macassey, Engineer to the Commissioners. The building exemplifies the distinctive architectural style favoured by the Belfast Water Commissioners, with high-quality design and execution evident throughout. Originally a more ambitious building was planned in 1895, but this was not realised. The two-storey section is similar in character to superintendent's houses at Dunnywater and Knockbreckan. The Silent Valley dam itself was constructed between 1923 and 1932, opening in 1933. The house is documented in an early 20th-century photograph by W.A. Green.

The structure is a two-storey, three-bay dwelling with a shallow gabled return of similar height to the front, forming an L-plan. The main block is aligned east-west with its main façade facing south, and a one-storey extension abuts the rear left corner. The steeply pitched roof is covered in natural slate and features two rock-faced ashlar granite chimneys—one on the left gable and one at the rear on the right. Two monopitched dormers punctuate the front pitch. The roof extends over the front eaves to create a veranda supported on two cast-iron columns and secured to the front return on the right. Decorative finialed bargeboards ornament all gables. Cast-iron cyma recta rainwater goods complete the external detailing.

The walls are constructed of rock-faced squared rubble granite with snecking, laid in irregular courses and strap-pointed. Window and door casings feature smoothly dressed granite detailing. All windows are sliding sashes with smoothly dressed granite cills. The entrance door, situated beneath the veranda at the left of the main façade, is a five-panel door with the top three panels glazed and the bottom two formed of herringbone tongue-and-groove boards, with a transom light above. To its right are two further windows. The ground floor of the front return contains a canted bay window with a slated roof, with a pair of windows on the first floor above. The dormers have square timber windows. The veranda floor is laid with square terracotta tiles in a diamond pattern with stretcher-bond margins.

The left gable has a window at each floor level and a single-storey return abutting at the left. A lean-to kitchen with a monopitched roof extends along the full length of the rear elevation. The left end of the main block is gabled with one window at first-floor level. A casement window sits to the right of this, also at first-floor level. An extension abuts the right end of this wall. A wall encloses the rear of the house to form a yard, entered by a tongue-and-groove boarded door on the right side. The right elevation of the main block has two windows at ground floor and one window in the gable of the lean-to. The yard wall continues along this side.

The rear extension has a gabled natural slate roof with a chimney on its left gable as viewed from the front. The main façade of the extension has two pairs of windows and a front door on the right. The right gable abuts the kitchen lean-to, with a metal flue from the kitchen roof rising up the gable. A window opens onto the left gable, and a pair of windows sits towards the left end of the rear.

The house is set within lawns on all four sides. The front garden features raised flowerbeds, a post-war concrete fountain, and a rusticated granite ornament. The building's picturesque porch and bargeboards are particularly noteworthy. Together with nearby entrance gates, it lends significant character to this locality and occupies a prominent setting above Head Road.