Fitzpatricks, 51 Downpatrick Street, Rathfriland, Co Down, BT34

Fitzpatricks is a three-storey house and former spirit grocery dating from the late 18th or early 19th century, with later 19th-century additions, located on the west side of Downpatrick Street at the corner with Caddells Lane in Rathfriland. It is a well-detailed building with a very attractive 19th-century shopfront, original plan and much original interior, showing historical development from two to three storeys. Along with the yard and outbuildings, it forms an important group, and its prominent position reflects its former importance in the life of the town.

The building has an L-shaped natural slate roof, gabled to the left (south) of the front block, hipped to the right (north) side, and gabled at the rear (west) end. Three tall decorative rendered chimneys with terracotta pots are present. Those to the left (south) gable end and the rear ridge are identical, with stop-end chamfered corners and moulded bands and coping. The third chimney is set at 45 degrees to the north corner, featuring a panelled front inset with a roundel and decorative colonettes with Corinthian capitals at each corner, with moulded coping matching the others. Eaves are formed by brick brackets supporting terracotta tiles that step in and out from the façade, supporting ogee cast iron gutters with a downpipe to Caddells Lane.

The front elevation to Downpatrick Street is symmetrical, lined rendered and painted with a contrasting painted basecourse. At ground floor centre is a 19th-century painted timber shopfront. Slightly recessed to centre is a pair of two-panelled and bolection-moulded storm doors with square bottom panels. A moulded timber lintel sits over the door, above which is a transom light with rounded top corners and leaded and coloured glazing with the letters "O & F" set into it in white glass, representing Owen & Fitzpatrick. On either side of this doorway are shop windows, both vertically divided into two panes, each with an obscured glass transom in line with, and detailed as, that over the door but narrower. The windows have moulded timber frames and incised spandrels in their rounded top corners. A thick cast in-situ concrete cill covers the bottoms of the frames. The stallriser below each cill has a chamfered base course. Inside, within each shop window pane is a painted timber advertising panel with gold scripted text reading "Auctioneer", "& Valuer", "Wines &" and "Spirits". Flanking the doorway and framing the shop windows are reeded timber pilasters on slightly advanced painted granite plinths. Each pilaster has been plainly repaired at the bottom, and at the top each has a plain frieze with a roundel attached under a thin Scotia cornice. These pilasters support a flat timber fascia with decorated ends and a dentilled overhanging leaded timber cornice. Applied to the fascia in large individual plastic letters is "Fitzpatrick's". Walls to left and right of the shopfront are blank. At first floor, in line with the shop windows, are two window openings, each containing a pair of 1/1 sliding sashes with horns, painted granite cills, stop-end chamfered reveals and foliated ornamental keystones. The keystones support a thin moulded stringcourse between the first and second floors. There are two similar openings at second floor, but these are diminished in height and have plainer fielded keystones.

The left (south) gable is abutted by a lower building and is blank above. The right (north) elevation to Caddells Lane has render, eaves and stringcourse as the façade. It is four openings wide to each floor, with an additional one between the third and fourth openings at ground floor. Ground floor from left to right has five openings: a four-panelled door with bottom two raised and fielded panels and top two glazed with a plain transom light over; a 1/1 exposed box sliding sash with horns and painted granite cill; a 1/2 sliding sash with horizontally divided bottom sash; a four-panelled door with bolection mouldings, beaded muntin, brass furniture and a narrow transom light; and a 1/1 sash window. There are four windows to each upper floor, with those at second floor diminished in height, all in line with those to ground floor. Set into the wall at second floor left is a granite plaque incised "Caddells / Street 1677". This elevation continues right as an outbuilding fronting the yard.

The rear of the house fronts the yard. The rear of the Downpatrick Street block (west-facing) is in two parts, a narrow west-facing cheek and a long south-facing elevation, at right angles to one another. Eaves are plain rendered with a course of tiles above supporting the gutter. Walls are lined rendered and painted. Both elevations are abutted completely at ground floor by a lean-to extension. The west-facing narrow cheek is abutted at first floor by the lean-to roof and at second floor has a 1/1 sash window with horns and granite cill. The south-facing elevation has two windows to each upper floor, all 1/1 top-hung casements with granite cills. That to the right has had its cill raised to accommodate the roof of the extension.

The extension has a lean-to natural slate roof with a modern skylight on its west-facing pitch that is larger and taller than the other roof. Its south-facing gable on the west-facing block has two small 1/1 sashes at ground floor and a 1/1 fixed light in the gable. Its front (west-facing) wall has an original doorway containing a modern stained timber multi-glazed door. The end gable of the south-facing extension is blank and its south-facing wall has a broad sheeted door with a 1/1 sliding sash to its right and a modern 1/1 top-hung casement to its left, both with painted granite cills.

A building is shown here on the 1776 Meade town map. The 1834 Valuation town map shows a building here described in the accompanying Valuation book as belonging to Stephen Tornan and valued at £10. Margaret Tornan occupied the premises in the early 1860s. The Second Valuation book notes it has "a good situation. About the best in town for a public house" with measurements given as 10 yards x 7.75 yards x 2 storeys. The 1894 Valuation revision entry notes "house raised and improved". The building was taken over by Owen Fitzpatrick in or shortly before 1890. The shop and bar functioned as one until Partition in 1921, when legislation in Northern Ireland required them to split into two separate functions, resulting in the timber partition visible today.