The entrance front faces south across three bays, and the central doorway is framed by wooden Ionic columns, the fluted classical order more commonly found on civic buildings than domestic ones. Above the door, a fanlight with flowing astragals, the thin glazing bars that divide a fanlight into decorative curves, lets light into the entrance hall. The windows are camber-headed sashes, their arched heads cut at a shallow angle that was fashionable in the early nineteenth century. Inside, early plasterwork and original fireplaces survive, though the house overall has fallen into disrepair.

The house appears on the 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map under the name 'Mardyke', and it was built around the 1830s as one of a pair of structures on ground that had only recently been made usable. The area was marsh before development began, and this house and its neighbour, Mardyke House, were among the first buildings to appear once the land was drained and laid out. The rear of the house reveals a slightly different character from the front: a central extension projects outward, lit by a round-headed stairway window, and a single-storey gabled outhouse extends westward. These additions suggest a building that was adapted and extended as the household required, rather than delivered as a finished composition.

The Mardyke as a place name has older roots in Cork than the 1830s development. The name derives from a Dutch word for a water channel or embankment, and it was applied to a tree-lined walk along the western edge of the city that had been established in the early eighteenth century as a fashionable promenade. By the time these houses were built, the name carried associations of civic leisure and respectable suburban life, which makes their current condition all the more striking to encounter.