19 Seaview, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3NJ

19 Seaview, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down BT34 3NJ

This is the left-hand house of a pair of substantial mid-19th-century houses occupying a prominent seafront location overlooking the sea to the southeast. Built between 1840 and 1859, and recorded as 'Bayview' in the Second Valuation of 1861, the house remains little altered and retains much of its original character.

The building is two storeys with attic accommodation. The front façade is three bays wide, while the rear is two bays wide (the adjoining pair having three bays to rear). The walls are rendered dry-dashed with stepped stucco quoins at the left end. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate and carries three rendered and corbelled chimneystacks: one on the left gable (a dummy), one between the middle and right bays, and one on the party wall shared with the adjoining house. Boxed eaves support moulded metal rainwater goods. Modern small skylights have been added to the left and right bays of the front pitch. A wall-head dormer to the middle bay has a pitched natural slate roof and plain timber bargeboard, with a 2/2 sash window to the front and two-paned windows to the left and right cheeks.

The main entrance occupies the left bay and consists of an original four-panelled timber door with plainly glazed transom, set within a smooth rendered and painted architrave with foliated console brackets supporting a moulded cornice. Above this is a 1/1 sliding sash window with smooth rendered and painted semicircular-headed architrave, slightly advanced block at the spring of the arch, infilled spandrel and plain cill.

The middle bay features a two-storey canted bay, which shares eaves level and rainwater goods with the main block. Its roof is concealed by a moulded cornice supporting the wall-head dormer. The walls are rendered and painted with a common cill course to each floor. Each cant contains a 1/1 sliding sash window.

The right bay has a semi-elliptical coachway to the ground floor with smooth rendered architrave and a pair of large tongue-and-groove sheeted doors. At first floor are a pair of windows matching those of the left bay. The left gable is abutted by 18 Seaview.

The rear elevation is smooth rendered and painted. At ground floor left is a pair of tongue-and-groove sheeted carriage doors, with an 8/8 sliding sash window and painted granite cill to their right. Each bay of the first floor has a 6/6 sliding sash window without horns. Set at attic level of the right bay is a 3x3 paned window.

The rear return, abutting the right bay, is two storeys with pitched natural slate roof. A glazed cat-slide roof covers the rear lobby at the join with the main house. Walls are smooth line rendered and painted. The lobby advances slightly; its exposed right cheek is blank and its left cheek abuts the main block. The yard face has a glazed tongue-and-groove sheeted door with a 1x3 paned window to its right (without cill). Above at first floor is a 3x3 timber window. The return has four openings to the ground floor: the third from left is a tongue-and-groove sheeted door, the rest are 6/6 sliding sashes. The first floor has two windows—a 1/1 margin-paned sash to the left and a 6/1 sliding sash to the right. The right gable is abutted by the adjoining house.

To the front of the house is a garden area enclosed by a dwarf wall with hedges. A gravel drive is shared with the adjoining building. The house is of considerable architectural interest for its style, proportion, ornamentation and plan form, as well as for the quality and survival of its interior and its group value in the seafront context. It is also of local historical interest.