13 + 15 Downpatrick Street, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5DG

Pair of early 20th-century two-storey urban vernacular shops set in a terrace on the west side of Downpatrick Street in Rathfriland. The pair share a common pitched roof, with the right building (No. 13) clad in artificial slates and the left (No. 15) in natural slates. Both have advanced eaves courses supporting half-round gutters (metal to the left, plastic to the right) and a shared central cast iron downpipe. A cement rendered chimney sits on the party wall, and a modern flue breaks the ridge at the centre of the right roof. Both buildings have painted and lined rendered walls.

No. 15 (left two bays) has a painted basecourse. The left bay at ground floor is occupied by a semi-elliptical headed coachway to the rear. The right bay contains the entrance and shop front, with a door on its left side sheeted with six small glazed panes (3 by 2 arrangement) to the top. To the right is a modern post-World War II top-hung casement window (1/1) without a cill. Above this, the wall is painted with "J. Turley / Gents Hairdresser" and displays a traditional red and white striped barber's sign. The first floor has a 2/2 vertically divided sash window with horns to each bay, both with painted granite cills and exposed boxes. The rear coachway is finished in smooth cement render. The left gable of No. 15 is abutted by a higher building, while the right gable forms the party wall with No. 13. The rear elevation has smooth cement rendered walls with a single tongue-and-groove sheeted door to the left at ground floor and a vehicle arch to the right. The first floor is blank.

No. 13 (right two bays) has two modern top-hung casement windows (1/1) without cills at the ground floor of the left bay. The right bay contains the entrance and shop front, with a door to its left glazed with 15 panes (3 by 5 arrangement) and inset with a rendered left reveal and a canted and glazed right reveal that continues as a large fixed shop window. A plain timber fascia above the shop front, covering half its width, obscures the cill of the first floor right window. The first floor has a single 2/2 vertically divided exposed box sliding sash to each bay; the left one has a painted granite cill. The rear elevation has unpainted cement rendered walls abutted centrally by a single-storey lean-to. To its left is a sheeted door with glazed top panels, and to its right a modern timber window with an extractor vent. Two first floor windows on the rear, aligned with ground floor openings, are each 4/4 exposed box sliding sashes with horns and no cills. The lean-to has a corrugated asbestos roof with louvred doors on the left cheek and louvred vents on the rear and right cheeks. The right gable of No. 13 is abutted by a larger building.

These buildings first appear in the valuation revision books in an entry dated 1917 and replaced three earlier houses that formerly occupied this plot. The pair has undergone considerable alteration.