9 Cavan Rd, Rathfriland, Newry, BT34 5LY

9 Cavan Road, Rathfriland, is a mid-19th century house, constructed between 1840 and 1859, which retains few features of architectural or historical merit.

The building is a one-and-a-half storey house of three bays arranged symmetrically, with a single storey return to the rear. It is set gable-end to the road on the south side of Cavan Road. The pitched natural slate roof has clay ridges and modern boxed eaves, with modern concrete coped chimneys to either gable and a further chimney on the party wall between the left and central bays, all carrying two pots. Two modern roof lights pierce the rear pitch.

The north-west facing front elevation has walls lined with lime render, painted, and raised stucco quoins at each corner. The central bay contains the main entrance, featuring a granite threshold, a modern stained timber door with sidelights and fanlight, all set within the original semi-elliptical headed doorway. The left and right bays are lit by modern plastic double-glazed 1/1 windows with painted granite cills. The left gable of the house is detailed as a façade with a modern 1/1 timber top-hung attic window.

The rear elevation is partially abutted on its left half by a modern extension, which is a rebuild of an original one. The remaining wall of the main house to the right of the extension is rendered and has two modern top-hung windows, one timber and one plastic. The return has a pitched artificial slate roof with a lower ridge than the main house, modern eaves and rainwater goods, and walls of painted cement-rendered concrete blockwork. All windows and door to the return are modern stained timber. The right gable of the main block is detailed as a front elevation, with a modern plastic double-glazed casement at ground floor and a small steel-framed casement in the gable at first floor. Rainwater goods throughout are semicircular plastic.

To the front of the house is a small garden enclosed by a beech hedge and a wrought-iron pedestrian gate of mid-19th century date, hung on one-piece octagonal granite posts with conical tops. To the rear is a yard enclosed by two ranges of much-altered single storey outbuildings, all with corrugated asbestos roofs and whitewashed walls. This complex has been extended further to the south with modern agricultural buildings.

The house does not appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, when Cavan Cottage was recorded to the north where Cavan House now stands. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859 shows the house with its rear return and an outbuilding to its south-east, confirming a mid-19th century construction date. The house is named on the 1902 six-inch map. A 1972 heritage survey noted a rendered cottage with quoins, a slated roof, three chimneys recessed in an elliptical arched opening with radial glazed fanlight and patterned sidelights, windows either side of the entrance comprising 12-pane sashed windows with margins, and later additions to the rear. The survey photograph of the same date shows a four-panelled 19th century door with four-paned sidelights with side margin panes, and 6/6 sash windows with side margin panes. The current occupant reported in 1999 that the house was modernised in 1993, accounting for the extensive later alterations visible today.