'Rockmore'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Relatively large and unusual single storey hipped roof house of pre 1815 origin, but whose current picturesque ‘holiday cottage’ appearance with a canted bay, gabled porch and shaped barges, is late Victorian/Edwardian. The property has a large basement and a large return to the rear. The house is set on a rise (a rock outcrop) to the E of Central Promenade, to the S of Newcastle town centre.

The front façade faces E and is asymmetrical. To the left of centre is a shallow timber porch with panelled door, large semicircular fanlight, narrow double pilaster jambs and narrow fixed light side windows. The porch has a gabled (slated) roof with decorative barges, finial and saw-tooth clay ridge tiles.

To the immediate left of the porch is a single storey canted bay with hipped slated roof with barges, tiles and finial as before. To each face of the bay is a sash window, on a cill course. To the right of the porch are three, unevenly spaced sash windows with semicircular heads and moulded surrounds. The right hand third of this portion of the façade (to the right of the porch) is the front of an extension which was added c.1910.

The S elevation is blank apart from two small (sash) basement windows, with metal bars over. To the left this elevation the façade projects slightly (see notes on rear elevation below).

The N elevation consists of the N façade of the main front hipped roof section, the gable of a two storey rear section and the N façade of a rear return beyond this. The N façade of the main hipped roof section has a semicircular headed doorway to right with panelled and glazed door, fanlight and moulded surround as front right windows. The N gable of the two storey rear section is set back from the line of the above façade. This gable has two small windows to ground floor level (which is considerably lower than the ground floor of the main front section). The window to the left has a sash frame, that to the right has a modern frame. To the upper level is a semicircular headed window, as front. The N façade of the rear return has three windows to low ground floor level (one modern frame to right sash). To the first floor are two sash windows. To the far right on this façade is a narrow open passage which leads through the return.

The rear elevation is complex. To the far left is the only exposed section of the rear of the main section, which has a partly glazed modern door. To the immediate right of this is the exposed upper half of the gable of the return, which has two sash windows. The S façade of the return has a sash window to the first floor and two (smaller) to the ground floor. To the right of the return is the rear of the two storey section which has a single storey lean-to with large modern picture window and partly glazed door. To the short S face of the lean-to is a small window with modern frame. To the first floor of the rear of the two storey section is another large picture window. The S gable of the two storey section has a small window to the left on the ground floor. To the right of this is a short flat roofed in-fill which links to a large single storey projection further to the S. The short in-fill has a glazed door. The single storey projection culminates (to the W) in a canted, hipped roof ‘bay’ with a sash window to the outer faces of the bay and a glazed door to the central face. The SW face of the bay stretches to basement level where there is a window with modern frame. The ‘well’ which lights this window has wrought iron railings around. The S façade of the projection projects beyond the line of the S façade of the main front section of the house.

The rear two storey section has a small section of E facing exposed façade. As this looks into the rear of the roof of the main front section, it is unable to be seen from the E. However, it does have a small four pane window, which lights the stairwell (see interior description).

The façade is finished in a mixture of lined and plain render and painted. The front and N façade of the main front section have trellises attached to them. The pitched sections of the roof are covered in natural slate, with red clay saw-tooth ridge tiles to most ridges. Most areas of the roof have a slight overhang with decorative eaves to main front section. The main front section has a small Velux window to rear and three rendered chimney stacks. There is another similar chimney stack to the two storey rear section and another to the single storey projection to SW. The rw goods appear to be mainly metal.

To the immediate NW of the house is a large two storey outbuilding, rendered and painted to the S and W and with various window and door openings. The N façade is in unrendered random rubble. There is a small single storey flat roofed shed to the gable of the rear return. This shed was once part of a large outbuilding which was largely demolished in recent years.

Historical information

A map of part of Lord Annesley’s Newcastle estate, drawn up in 1815, shows a house on this site with a short rear return. The schedule to accompany the same map tells us that this house belonged to a William Law. The OS map of 1834 shows a similar shaped building, which the contemporary valuation records state was reasonably old (perhaps 30 years or more) at that date and therefore undoubtedly the same building on the 1815 map. Single storey with a taller return, the house the valuers recorded would appear to underlie the building we see today (the current owners’ deeds suggested this also).

The house remained in the Law family until the middle 1800s, when it was acquired by Rev. William Steel, who is recorded as the occupant in the 1863 valuation. By the 1880s (at least) the property, now known as ‘Rockmore’, came into possession of the Murphy family, who remained there until c.1920. It was during the Murphys’ tenure that the house appears to have taken on its ‘picturesque’ appearance, with the front and rear bays and the porch added c.1880s and the main portion extended northwards in c.1910.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.1503 Annesley Papers.
2 PRONI VAL/1B/362 p.21 First valuation, Kilcoo, c.1834-38.
3 PRONI OS/1/3/49 OS map, first ed., Co Down 49.
4 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.3: Parishes of County Down I’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB1990), p.43.
5 PRONI VAL/1D/3/10 Valuation town plan of Newcastle, 1838.
6 PRONI OS/6/3/49/2 OS map, first rev., Co. Down 49.
7 PRONI Second (‘Griffith’s) valuation, Kilcoo, 1863.
8 PRONI VAL/12E/111/1 Valuation town plan of Newcastle, 1864-1906.
9 PRONI and Linen Hall Library ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ Vols.1-21, 1852-1900, (Belfast, Henderson [1852-65], Belfast News-Letter [1865- ]).
10 George Henry Bassett ‘County Down Guide and Directory’ (Dublin 1886), pp.161-165.
11 PRONI OS/8/136/1-4 OS plans of Newcastle, 1901.

Secondary sources
1 P.J. Rankin, 'Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in the Mourne Area of South Down', (Belfast UAHS 1975), p.73.
2 Grenfell Morton ‘Victorian and Edwardian Newcastle’ (Belfast 1988). [This book includes a photograph of Rockmore c.1900 (from the Laurence Collection at PRONI), showing Rockmore in c.1900, before the main section was extended northwards.]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Relatively large and unusual single storey hipped roof house of pre 1815 origin, but whose current picturesque ‘holiday cottage’ appearance- with a canted bay, gabled porch and shaped barges- is late Victorian/Edwardian. The property has a large basement and a large two storey return to the rear.