Steward's House, Narrow Water Demesne, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down

Steward's House, Narrow Water Demesne, Warrenpoint

This is a derelict two-storey, four-bay Steward's House occupying an elevated site within Narrow Water Demesne. The house sits south of the main farmyard and immediately northeast of the walled garden, accessed via the main driveway through the primary farmyard. It is accompanied by a small farmyard to its rear and several associated outbuildings.

The main house has a hipped natural slate roof, now collapsed, aligned northwest-southeast with a ridge chimney between the left two bays and a wall-head chimney on the rear of the right bay. The northeast-facing façade is lined with rendered rubble stone, featuring an advanced basecourse, stepped stucco quoins, and an eaves course of cow-nosed yellow bricks. All windows have fallen in but appear originally to have been 2/2 vertically divided sliding sashes with dressed granite cills; first floor windows were slightly diminished in height.

The façade arrangement is as follows: the left bay contains a single window to each floor. The bay to the left of centre and the right bay are identical, each featuring a canted bay window at ground floor with advanced eaves and flat masonry head; each cheek of these bay windows contains a single window opening, with a pair of windows over to the first floor. The third bay, right of centre, has a flight of four granite steps rising to a segmental-headed doorway; the opening retains the granite base of the doorframe and flanking sidelights, with a single window above at first floor level.

The left gable is abutted by a two-storey outbuilding enclosing the front of the rear yard. The rear elevation is abutted at centre by a small lean-to and to the left by a building enclosing the northwest of the rear yard. The remaining rear wall is rubble stone, formerly harled, with a window at ground floor right and one at first floor centre. The attached lean-to has a mono-pitched roof and red brick walls, with a window to the left and a doorway at the right. The right gable has a single window to each floor, with its right corner abutted by a two-storey house adjoining the outside wall of the outbuilding enclosing the northwest of the yard.

Associated with the house is a front outbuilding, a two-storey structure with a pitched natural slate roof aligned northwest-southeast. Its harled front wall has an advanced eaves course; at the left end is a first floor loading door with ventilation slits at centre, and at the right end is a segmental-headed archway with roughly dressed granite jambs and a similar head featuring an advanced keystone with an incised oval inset of unreadable inscription. The left gable is blank, while the right gable abuts the left gable of the house. The rear yard-facing elevation has the archway at the left with a small loft window over, a wide doorway at ground floor centre, and at the right end is abutted by single-storey outbuildings.

A cart house, symmetrical and single-storey, forms a lean-to abutting the southeast wall of the yard. The yard wall is rubble stone, and the pitched natural slate roof, now collapsed, has a central gable supported on an arcaded red brick front wall. The arcade consists of ten low segmental archways, five on either side of a larger masonry-built archway under the central gable. The southwest boundary of the yard is enclosed by a rubble stone wall, abutted by a collapsed lean-to of concrete blockwork and corrugated iron.

A two-storey, single-bay outbuilding encloses the northwest side of the farmyard, with a pitched natural slate roof aligned southwest-northeast. Its harled rubble stone walls contain eight openings at ground floor: two window openings, a doorway, two segmental-headed archways (the right one infilled as a doorway), a window, a doorway, and a window in a common opening. The final three openings open into the small domestic yard at the rear of the main house. The first floor is blank except for a window opening over the infilled archway. Its right gable abuts the rear elevation of the house, and its rear wall fronts the smaller yard, abutted to the left end by a two-storey house. To its right is a doorway, adjoining the side of a circular horse walk.

A two-storey, two-bay house abuts the right end of the outer wall of the northwest yard-enclosing building. It has a pitched natural slate roof, now collapsed, aligned southwest-northeast with a chimney breast between the two bays. The walls are rubble stone with red brick dressings. The southeast elevation abuts the outbuilding completely. The southwest gable has a pair of 2/2 sashes in a common opening at first floor. The northwest elevation has partially collapsed to the left bay but appears originally to have had two windows at ground floor; the right bay has two 6/6 sash windows at ground floor and a pair of 2/2 sashes in a common opening at first floor. The north gable contains a tongue-and-groove sheeted doorway with transom light at ground floor.

Immediately northwest of the yard is a smaller yard containing a horse walk and a range of ruinous single-storey outbuildings. The horse walk is a circular, now ruinous structure with collapsed rubble stone walls. Its northwest end has a masonry wall with two openings into a passage wrapping around the northwest third of the circle, enclosed by a curving rubble stone wall with segmental-headed doorways at each end. The lean-to roof above is gone. The southeast end of the horse walk abuts the building enclosing the northwest boundary of the farmyard.