Yard to rear of 51 Downpatrick Street, Accessed from Caddell's lane, Rathfriland, Co Down, BT34

Yard to Rear of 51 Downpatrick Street

This cobbled yard, accessed from Caddells Lane in Rathfriland, contains two substantial outbuildings aligned west to east, associated with the main house and shop at 51 Downpatrick Street.

The front outbuilding is two storeys high with a pitched natural slate roof. Its front walls are line rendered and painted, continuing seamlessly from the north wall of the adjacent house. At ground floor level, a pair of large tongue-and-groove doors fill a flat-headed vehicle entrance leading into the yard, with conical granite wheel stones set at each jamb. A tongue-and-groove sheeted door stands centrally at ground floor. The street rises to the right, partially obscuring the ground floor at the west end. First floor contains three tongue-and-groove sheeted doors—two aligned with the ground floor openings and a third at the right end, above which a beam and pulley block is mounted. The left gable abuts the house gable; the right gable is blank.

The rear elevation is partially enclosed by an open lean-to canopy with cast iron posts and corrugated iron roof. Within the canopy sits a modern rendered blockwork shed with metal window and modern door. The remainder of the rear elevation is rubble stone, painted, containing five main openings from left to right: a sheeted half door, a fixed two-paned window, a sheeted half door, a fixed two-paned window, and a vehicle entrance with timber beam lintel. Within this coachway are two small fixed windows and wall recesses to accommodate the doors when open. The timber ceiling incorporates a loading hatch to the sugar loft. At first floor, a sheeted loading door with cantilevered timber platform sits above the second doorway, with a second smaller loading door above the coachway at right.

The yard is paved with rounded irregular cobbles, some of which have lifted. Its western boundary is a high painted and dashed rubble stone wall with an infilled coachway that formerly led to a rear paddock, now in separate ownership. The rear boundary incorporates a modern lean-to stable of no architectural merit.

The rear outbuilding at the east end is two storeys tall, abutting the rear of No. 53 Downpatrick Street and itself abutted by the returns of that building. It has a pitched natural slate roof, hipped at the abutting end with eaves below the level of No. 53. A small wall head gablet to the centre of the yard elevation contains a cantilevered pulley wheel. Plastic rainwater goods are fitted.

The walls are lime rendered and painted with a contrasting painted basecourse and advanced eaves course. At ground floor, the yard elevation contains eight openings wide: the second, fourth, and seventh are timber half doors, the fourth now disused. The remaining openings comprise a pair of side-sliding six-paned windows in the first and third positions, and single side-sliding six-paned windows in the fifth, sixth, and eighth positions; the eighth window is missing and the left two are modern replicas. All have painted granite cills. The first floor is seven openings wide, arranged symmetrically about the central gablet. The second, fourth, and sixth openings are timber sheeted loading doors; the remainder are two-by-four paned side-sliding windows with granite cills.

The right gable is partially abutted at ground floor by a mono-pitched stable block of no architectural interest. The gable is otherwise blank except for a two-paned fixed window at first floor. The rear is entirely abutted by the two-storey return wall of No. 53 Downpatrick Street.