16 Church Square, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5PT

16 Church Square, Rathfriland

A three-storey, three-bay building comprising a shop on the left and a house on the right, set in a terrace on the east side of Church Square facing the former Market House. Although of considerable age, the building has been compromised by modern uPVC windows and rear extensions.

The pitched natural slate roof features two painted rendered chimneys—one on the left gable and one on the centre of the ridge—each topped with a single tall octagonal yellow terracotta pot. The roof has tiled skews and half-round plastic rainwater goods. The walls are painted and lined cement rendered, though the rear elevation reveals unrendered random rubble construction.

At ground floor level, the left bay contains the shop. The shop doorway, positioned to the right of the opening, is recessed with a red and black glazed tiled floor. The door is three-panelled with the top two panes glazed, with a narrow two-paned transom light above. The left cheek of the doorway is canted and glazed; the right reveal is painted tongue-and-groove sheeting. A large fixed window with a very thin two-paned transom fills the remainder of the shop front. Thin moulded timber pilasters with small plain capitals frame the shop front at either end, supporting a plain timber fascia that continues across part of the central bay.

The house occupies the central bay at ground floor. It has a modern stained timber and glazed door with a curved rendered reveal and granite threshold, and to its right is a 1/1 uPVC window with painted granite cill and stop-end chamfered reveal. The right bay has a large sheeted timber door leading to a rear passage. Between ground and first floors runs a moulded stucco cornice supported by paired brackets, which forms the cills of the first floor windows.

The first floor has four small regularly-spaced 1/1 uPVC windows; the right two are slightly shorter than those to the left. All windows have run-moulded architraves with vermiculated ornamental keyblocks. Second floor window openings are diminished in height, with the right pair again shorter than the left. All have moulded cills and run-moulded architraves; those to the first floor have additional rusticated keystones. The left half of the principal façade has an advanced eaves course; the right half has a heavily moulded painted granite eaves cornice.

The left gable abuts a higher adjoining property. A lower building (No. 18 Church Square) abuts the right gable.

The rear elevation, inspected from the rear yard of the adjacent building, shows unrendered random rubble walls. At ground floor left is a coachway entrance. First floor left, above the coachway, has a single window opening now infilled, with a sheeted timber door to its right. A tongue-and-groove sheeted lean-to structure supported on a steel I-beam frame has been added to the right bay, covering the upper half of the first floor and all of the second floor. Its monopitched roof slopes from the main building's eaves and has a timber casement window on its main face. A two-storey random rubble outbuilding with pitched natural slate roof stands in the rear yard.

The plot appears to have been built over by 1776. Both 16 and its neighbour are shown on the 1835 Valuation map and cited in the First Valuation; the same measurements appear on the 1860 town map and in the Second Valuation book. At that time the northern building was a china shop and the southern a house used as a store. The buildings do not appear to have been redeveloped, indicating they date to the early 19th century or possibly earlier. The original survey photographs show the building originally had 2/2 sliding sashes without horns to ground and first floors, with additional iron railings securing the bottom sashes; second floor windows were 1/2 sliding sashes without horns, suggesting they were once Georgian glazed.

The building was used as a newspaper office in the 1997–1998 film "Crossmaheart", based on Colin Bateman's novel "Cycle of Violence".