156 Lower Dromore Road, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3LN

A vernacular house of the mid-19th century, retaining much character despite alterations and extensions.

The building is a single-storey, three-bay vernacular house on the east side of Dromore Road in Warrenpoint, aligned west to east up the slope with its gable facing the road. The left and central bays are thatched with a plain ridge and a whitewashed rubble stone chimney at the join with the slate roof to the right. The walls are rubble stone with ochre-painted lime render.

The principal elevation faces south. The central bay has a tongue-and-groove sheeted door with a 19th-century letter box and knob, with a small fixed timber window to its right. The left bay contains a slightly wider three-by-two paned timber casement window. The right bay is a later addition, recognizable by its slightly higher wall head and pitched natural slate roof with a second chimney to its gable. This section has whitewashed walls and a two-by-two sliding sash window with horns and exposed sash boxes to the centre. The left gable of the thatched section is blank.

The rear elevation of the thatched section has a pair of one-by-one casement windows in a single opening to the left, with a modern half-glazed door to its right and a small three-by-two paned window at the extreme right end. A small shed of concrete blockwork and corrugated metal walls with a corrugated plastic roof abuts between the windows. The rear of the higher right bay is largely obscured by a post-World War II concrete block extension with painted and rendered finish, featuring a shallow monopitched tin roof. The north-facing wall of the extension is blank. The left cheek has a modern fixed window with concrete cill, and the right cheek has a single-paned casement, also with concrete cill. The right gable of the right bay is blank, with a rubble stone chimney breast advancing forward in two stages.

The front elevation is planted with mature trees and bushes, enclosed by hedges. Small box hedges and creepers grow up the front of the house. To the rear right stands a cast iron pump on a concrete plinth with fluted head, lugged spout, and cow-tailed handle, bearing a lion mark on the plain banded column inscribed "Lion / Evans". The pump is now disused.

Historical evidence indicates a building occupied this site from at least 1834, though the present house's orientation first appears on the 1860 Ordnance Survey map. The property was valued at £1 in 1863, rising to £1 10s 0d by 1875, a change possibly reflecting the addition of the right bay. The cast iron pump visible today is a replacement installed by the owner approximately 40 years prior to 1999.