Entrance Screen

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Serving Narrow Water Castle, this symmetrical gate screen is on N side of Warrenpoint Road. It consists of a pair of central gate piers set back from the road and screens which sweep out to matching outer piers to roadside at left and right.

The inner gate piers are of squared granite rubble blocks laid in courses and square in section. Each has stepped and embattled copings slightly advanced on small moulded corbels. Their front and rear faces each have an arrow loop opening in dressed granite. They have masonry gate jambs on their inner faces, but the actual gates are now gone.

The outer piers are identical to the inner ones, but have arrow loops on their inward facing cheek only. The screens are of random granite rubble brought to courses with stepped and embattled coping. Their canted corners and section of walling returning to roadside each have an arrow loop identical to those in the piers. All loops have splayed redbrick reveals to rear.

A rubble stone estate wall runs the length of the Warrenpoint Road boundary. Its quality improves as it nears this screen, a short length on either side of the outer piers being higher and with arrow loops as the screen; the left side has two and the right has one such loop.

The stonework to the right screen has been reconstructed in 1980s in coarser rubble. Heavy sand/ cement repointing has been used.

Historical information

This entrance to Narrow Water demesne first appears on the 1860 OS map, along with a small building, presumably a gate lodge (which is explicitly cited on the 1901-02 map). Deane attributes the screen's erection to 1837, Thomas Duff being the architect. However, he attributes the lodge to c.1905, to a design by Vincent Craig - this would therefore seem to be a replacement of the original structure. The gates disappeared during the Second World War. In 1979, following a terrorist bomb, the lodge was demolished and the right-hand half of the screen and its associated towers rebuilt.

The HMBB first survey slide shows the lodge and the screen, with the right gate pier reinstated. The lodge has its gable to the road with the outer pier abutting its front left corner and the returning screen wall forming its left (principal) elevation. It has a pitched natural slate roof with coursed granite rubble chimney to its left pitch and raised crow-stepped front gable. Its walls of masonry similar to screen. Front gable has a window to each floor, each with a segmental head and containing a pair of 1/1 sliding sash windows (with horns) and dressed granite cills. The wall continues right at ground floor (presumably enclosing a yard).

The left elevation is two bays wide. It has the outer screen pier to its right end and a canted bay window to its left end. Wall head has an embattled parapet with pitched copings. A canted bay window fills the left bay, and sits in the angle of the returning screen wall, it is similarly detailed to front gable windows with a 1/1 sliding sash window to each of its three cheeks. The right bay has an arrow loop to left side and a Tudor headed doorway to its right. Door is painted timber.

The HMBB first survey card states: “Mid 19thC, a gate lodge and flanking walls, built of granite, in a style similar to Narrow Water House. The wall contains turrets built of dressed granite, the entrance door of the Lodge is recessed in a Tudor arched opening.”

Primary sources:
1. OS 6" map, 1834, Co Down sheet 51 (PRONI, OS/6/3/51/1).
2. OS 6" map, 1860, Co Down sheet 51 (PRONI, OS/6/3/51/2).

Secondary sources:
1. L. Bradley ‘Warrenpoint, Origins and Developments’ (1998), p.201.
2. HMBB first survey card dated 23/01/1970.
3. HMBB survey slide dated 23/01/1970.
4. J.A.K. Deane, ‘The Gate Lodges of Ulster, a Gazetteer’ (UAHS 1994), p.87.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This gate screen leading into Narrow Water Castle Demesne was designed by Newry architect, Thomas Duff. It is constructed in local materials and designed to complement the original Narrow Water Castle (directly opposite), with decorative stepped and embattled coping and arrow loop openings.