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

4 Manse Road, Kilkeel

This is a late Victorian brick-built house of two storeys with attic, erected in 1888 as part of a unified architectural group by Samuel Shannon. The house forms part of an impressive collection of finely detailed buildings in an attractive planned communal landscaped setting on the western side of Manse Road. It was formerly known as 'St Uranus' according to the 1901 Ordnance Survey map.

The building is three bays wide and forms the right half of a pair of mirror-image properties. The walls are constructed in red brick with yellow brick detailing, set in English garden wall bond, and rest on a chamfered granite base course. The roof is pitched with natural slate and features red clay crested ridges. Decorative red brick chimneys, their flues delineated by raised bricks, rise from the right gable and at the junction with No. 6.

The eaves are supported by three courses of decorative brick and are fitted with half-round metal gutters. Above the left bay, a dormer window rises from just above eaves level. This has a pitched natural slate roof with decorative fretted timber bargeboard and drop finial, and contains a pair of two-paned side-hung painted timber casements with painted timber cheeks.

The front elevation is dominated by two prominent canted bay windows. To the ground floor left is a one-storey canted bay with moulded granite cill and flat concrete-topped roof. Two courses of decorative yellow brick separated by two courses of red brick run between ground and first floor; the right corner features stepped granite quoins. This bay contains a 2/2 sliding sash to its face and 1/1 sashes on each cheek. Its right cheek is now incorporated into a modern painted timber and glass porch with glazed and panelled door and felt roof. The porch abuts the central bay, which at first floor level retains a 2/2 sash window and a narrow 1/1 sash window over the door.

The right bay is a two-storey canted window abutting an advanced gable. The gable features timber bargeboard with decorative cartouches and a spiked finial. At its centre is a recessed roundel inset with a yellow and red brick panel. The canted bay has walls, cills, windows and roof similar to the left bay but extends two storeys, with no string course at first floor. Instead, there are recessed brick panels dressed with yellow brick—two to the front and one on each cheek.

The left gable forms the party wall with No. 6. The right gable is in red brick with granite base course, quoins and yellow coursing as the façade, and features a painted timber bargeboard. It contains two slightly advanced brick bays at ground floor. The left bay continues to eaves level, corbels into the main wall, and has 1/1 sash windows to the wall on either side. The right bay contains a 2/2 sash at ground floor and corbels into the main wall at first floor, with a 2/2 window above. Centred to the attic are a pair of smaller 2/2 sashes. To the right of this elevation a return wall in red brick abuts, with a single modern glazed door at ground floor right end and a 1/1 sash window to the left at first floor.

The rear elevation is cement rendered and comprises three bays, with the central one narrower. A two-stage return abuts the left side: the first stage is two storeys and gabled with a chimney on the ridge; the second stage is single storey with a half-hipped natural slate roof. The return's left cheeks are in red brick. 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. All ground floor windows and doors to the rear are modern hinged casements, but those above are original.

At the front of the house is a common landscaped lawn with driveways dissecting the site. A boundary wall in granite rubble with embattled coping encloses the entire common site, featuring a pair of square gate piers to Manse Road, though the gates are no longer present. To the right of the house is a small private garden, and to the rear beyond the carriageway is a rear garden. The rear yard is enclosed by a dashed wall with a sheeted timber door to the alley. A separate modern house in different ownership has been built in the rear garden area.

The interior walls are white painted. The house retains much of its original character and architectural detail, though some alterations have been made, notably the modern porch at the front and replacement of ground floor rear windows with casements.