4 Manse Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4BN

4 Manse Road, Kilkeel is a late Victorian two-storey house with attic, built in red brick and forming part of a unified architectural group on the western side of Manse Road. The house is one of two mirror-image pairs within a larger planned communal development of five houses, set within a landscaped setting enclosed by a granite rubble boundary wall with embattled coping.

The house is three bays wide. It has a pitched natural slate roof with red clay crested ridges and decorative red brick chimneys, with eaves supported by three courses of decorative brick carrying half-round metal gutters. The front pitch features a dormer window over the left bay, rising from just above eaves level. The dormer has a pitched natural slate roof with decorative fretted timber bargeboard and drop finial, and is fitted with a pair of two-paned side-hung painted timber casements with painted timber cheeks.

The walls are constructed in red brick laid in English garden wall bond with yellow brick detailing and a chamfered granite base course. A two-storey canted right bay advances slightly beneath a large gable. Between ground and first floors run two courses of decorative yellow brick separated by two courses of red brick, with stepped granite quoins at the right corner. The gable features timber bargeboard with decorative cartouches and a spiked finial. To the centre of the gable is a recessed roundel inset with a yellow and red brick panel.

To the ground floor left is a one-storey canted bay window with moulded granite cill and flat concrete-topped roof. It contains a 2/2 sliding sash to its face and 1/1 sashes to each cheek. The right cheek of this bay is incorporated into a modern painted timber and glass porch, abutting the central bay, which has a modern glazed and panelled door and felt roof. Above at first floor, over the canted bay is a 2/2 sash window, and over the door is a narrow 1/1 sash window. The original walls within are white painted.

The two-storey canted bay window to the right has walls, cills, windows and roof matching the left bay. Instead of a string course at first floor, there are recessed brick panels dressed with yellow brick—two to the front and one to each cheek. The left gable forms a party wall with No. 6.

The right gable end is red brick with granite base course, quoins and yellow coursing matching the façade. It features a painted timber bargeboard. Slightly advanced brick bays to ground floor left and right corbel into the main wall; the left at eaves level contains a 1/1 sash window to either side, whilst the right contains a 2/2 sash window at ground floor and corbels into the main wall at first floor, with a 2/2 window above. Centred to the attic is a pair of smaller 2/2 sashes. The return wall to the right abuts in red brick with a single modern glazed door at ground floor right end and a 1/1 sash window to the left at first floor. Rear rainwater goods are plastic.

The rear elevation is cement rendered in three bays (the central one narrow). To the left is a two-stage return; the first stage is two-storey and gabled with a chimney on the ridge gable, whilst the second stage is single-storey with a half-hipped natural slate roof. The central bay has a shallower return rising three storeys with a flat roof over a service stair projection on its right cheek. The right bay is plain. Ground-floor windows and doors to the rear are modern hinged casements, whilst those above are original.

The front of the property features a common landscaped lawn with driveways dissecting the site. The boundary wall in granite rubble with embattled coping encloses the whole common site and has a pair of square gate piers to Manse Road, though the gates are gone. To the right is a small private garden, and to the rear beyond the carriageway is a rear garden where a new house in separate ownership has been built. The rear yard is enclosed by a dashed wall with a sheeted timber door to the alley.