23 Lisnaree Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5DX

A vernacular farmhouse retaining most of its original features and of some local interest, located on the west side of Lisnaree Road near Newry.

The building is a two-storey, three-bay structure that appears to have been raised from a single storey in the early 20th century, as evidenced by the different detailing of the upper floor compared to the ground floor. The pitched natural slate roof is aligned north-south with overhanging eaves and plain bargeboards topped with terracotta finials. Red brick chimneys are positioned at each gable and one between the central and right bays. The walls are harled rubble stone with brick dressings to some openings.

The front elevation faces east. At ground floor level, each of the three bays contains a 6/6 sash window. The centre window is positioned to the right of a single-storey porch with a hipped natural slate roof and rendered walls. The porch has a steel casement window on its front and right elevations, and a four-panelled door on its left elevation. The first floor has four equally spaced segmental-headed window openings that do not align with those below. Two of these openings are in the central bay. All have exposed boxes; the second from the left retains a pair of side-hung casement windows, while the remainder appear to have been sliding sashes. The right gable is blank.

The rear elevation is harled and adjoins a single-storey lean-to at ground floor level. The remaining first-floor wall has a 1/1 sash window in the central bay and another in the left bay. The lean-to has a mono-pitched roof of natural slate to the left bay and corrugated iron elsewhere. Its harled rubble stone walls include a window opening in the left bay, a 2/2 window and tongue-and-groove sheeted door in the central bay, and two 2/2 sash windows in the right bay. The left gable of the main house has two small segmental-headed 1/1 sash windows in the attic gable.

Historical records indicate a building of the same plan form existed at this location on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map but without a valuation, suggesting it was then a single-storey vernacular structure. The 1862 Valuation Book records it valued at £4 with no subsequent change. The present two-storey house thus appears to date from the mid-19th century.

The setting includes a lane running east from the front of the house to the road, with a farmyard at the rear. The farmyard is enclosed to the west by a modernised two-storey outbuilding with a pitched artificial slate roof and external stair, and to the north by a single-storey outbuilding with a segmental corrugated iron roof and rubble stone walls with stepped brick dressings.