37 Ballykeel Road, Rathfriland, Co Down, BT34 5AZ

37 Ballykeel Road, Rathfriland, is a Grade B1 listed house of unusual architectural interest, built in the early 1860s and set within a mature garden. It represents an unusually evolved vernacular building, notable for its irregular planform, distinctive internal detailing, and remarkably little-altered state.

The building comprises a two-storey, three-bay main block with its gable facing the road, together with a two-bay rear return that appears to be an earlier dwelling, possibly from the 1830s. The main block is pitched with natural slate roofing and features rendered and coped brick chimneys to each gable. Advanced rendered brick eaves course is present, though rainwater goods are now gone. Walls throughout are lime-rendered rubble stone. The principal elevation of the main block faces north.

The north-facing main elevation contains a central four-panelled entrance door with a plain transom above. All windows are exposed box sliding sashes with horns and painted granite cills. To the ground floor, the left and right bays contain single 6/6 windows, each aligned with a smaller 6/3 window above on the first floor. The first-floor left-bay window has a bullseye to its top sash. A modern soil pipe runs up the right side of the central bay. The east gable has two windows to each floor: ground-floor openings are tall narrow 4/4 sashes with small 6/3 sashes above them.

The south elevation of the main block is almost entirely abutted by the one-and-a-half-storey two-bay return (the presumed earlier dwelling). This return has a pitched natural slate roof with a lower ridge and eaves course than the main block, and a rendered brick chimney to its end gable. The east face of the return, which forms its principal elevation facing the road, features a slightly projecting windbreak with mono-pitched natural slate roof and a tongued-and-grooved sheeted door. Flanking the door are a 2/2 vertically divided sash window to the left and a 6/6 sash to the right. The south gable of the return has a large boulder forming part of its foundation at the southeast corner. The ground-floor left window retains a roughly dressed granite cill and the remains of a sash box. Two small 1/1 sash windows occupy the first-floor gable apex on either side of the chimney breast.

A single-storey lean-to scullery, constructed of rendered concrete blockwork with mono-pitched artificial slate roof, almost entirely abuts the west face of the return. The remaining exposed wall contains a metal casement window at ground floor and a 6/3 sash without cill at first floor; the roof and wall head above this upper window have collapsed.

The right gable of the main block is abutted by a single-storey outbuilding (now ruinous) whose front wall sits flush with the main block facade and contains two high-level window openings. A door is located on its rear wall. To the front (north) of the house is a small garden enclosed by hedges with mature trees, bordered by a cement-dashed rubble stone wall to the east. Immediately to the rear lies a large modern farmyard with tall Dutch barns and numerous much-altered traditional outbuildings.

Cartographic evidence indicates that a small rectangular building appeared on the 1834 and 1860 Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, likely corresponding to the return now at the rear of the main block. The two-storey north-facing house first appears on the 1902-03 OS six-inch map. However, the absence of any change in the premises' valuation between circa 1862 and the 1920s suggests construction in the early 1860s. The property has remained in the ownership of the Parker family since the 1860s and possibly earlier.