9-11 Newry Street, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5PY

9-11 Newry Street, Rathfriland

This mid 19th-century shop and office building is a three-storey structure incorporating two small shop units and offices, situated in a terrace on the south side of Newry Street. It retains an attractive pilastered façade with a fine shopfront and a good door case, along with many original internal features.

The building has a pitched natural slate roof with cement-rendered and coped chimneys to each gable, with rendered skews to the front pitch and moulded kneelers. Semicircular metal rainwater goods are carried on an advanced eaves course.

The front elevation is four windows wide on the upper floors. These are lined rendered and painted with stepped V-channelled stucco quoins. At ground floor, the left half contains two symmetrical shop fronts. At the centre is a pair of storm doors leading to a small common vestibule between the shops. Each storm door has a glazed top panel and bolection-moulded bottom panel, with a red and black tiled threshold and glazed cheeks. Flanking either side is a large shop window with a horizontal transom. This frontage is framed at either end by thin moulded render pilasters with rounded heads and tails to each panel. Above is a timber fascia with an overhanging leaded cornice and timber brackets, each with a small drop finial.

The right half of the ground floor contains a door to the left and a window to the right. Below the window is a moulded stucco basecourse. The door is four-panelled and bolection-moulded with raised insets, featuring a large decorative brass doorknob and plain brass letter slot. Above is a plainly glazed transom. Around both door and transom is a painted timber architrave embellished with fretted circles and lozenges. The door is set within a rectangular opening with a two-stage moulded reveal, low moulded basecourse, and a granite threshold. A modern hanging sign is mounted above, with a modern brass wall plaque to its right. The adjacent window is a 2/2 horizontally divided sliding sash with horns and a painted granite cill.

The four first-floor windows are equally spaced 2/2 horizontally divided sliding sashes with horns, sharing a common cill course with moulded stucco brackets beneath towards the right end (hidden by the fascia on the left). The openings are framed by tapering stucco pilasters with small plinths and small moulded Ionic capitals. The pilaster heads support the cill course of the second-floor windows and are flanked by similar brackets. The second-floor windows are of similar design but slightly diminished in height.

The left gable is abutted by a lower building and is rendered and unpainted. The right half of the rear elevation is abutted by a two-storey return. The exposed rear wall is lined rendered. At ground floor left is a modern timber door. To its right is a modern 1/1 top-hung casement without cill. Between ground and first floors on the right is a margin-paned 1/1 sliding sash window. At first floor left is a 1/1 margin-paned sliding sash window. At first floor right, between first and second floors, is a modern 1/1 landing window and escape door served by a metal fire escape ladder in a state of collapse. At second floor left is a 3/6 sash window with horns. At second floor right, above the rear return roof, is a second 3/6 sash window.

The rear return has a pitched roof with lower eaves than the main block. Its walls are lined rendered and unpainted. On its left cheek at ground floor left is a 6/6 sash with external wrought iron grille; a similar window to the right has been infilled. At first floor left there is a modern top-hung casement, and to the right is another infilled window opening. Its gable is blank. Its right cheek has a 6/6 sliding sash window at ground floor right and a pair of tongue-and-groove sheeted doors to its left. The first floor has two modern top-hung casements, both set to the right end. The right gable is abutted by a lower single-storey building, rendered and unpainted.

Historical Development

The plot was built over by 1776. Two shops are recorded in the 1835 Valuation book, with measurements of 13 feet by 30 feet by 24 feet and 12 feet 6 inches by 30 feet by 19 feet 6 inches respectively, both being two storeys. However, the c.1862 Valuation describes a building on the Valuation map measuring 43 feet by 33 feet by three storeys, described as a "large ironmongery shop". The absence of any subsequent change in the valuation suggests the site was redeveloped in the mid 1800s. The shop was originally a single unit, divided into two in the mid 1980s when the counter to 11A was removed.