RUC Station, 18A Downpatrick Street, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5DG

RUC Station, 18A Downpatrick Street, Rathfriland

This is a small, well-detailed two-storey inter-war police station of the 1920s–1930s, designed by architect T.F.O. Rippingham in Neo-Georgian style. It stands on the east side of Downpatrick Street with its west-facing façade prominently displayed. The building is little altered and retains all original external finishes and details, along with much original internal fabric including the stairwell, doors, cupboards, and lockers fitted with brass knobs.

The hipped roof is covered in natural slate with two cast iron skylights on the rear pitch. Deep overhanging eaves are sheeted with a soffit and support ogee metal gutters. A coped wet-dashed chimney runs along the ridge, aligned parallel to the façade, while two-stage stepped wall head chimneys on each side elevation, detailed similarly, break the eaves line and are tied to the main roof by small pitched roofs.

The walls are finished in wet dashed render with a smooth chamfered base course and a moulded concrete cill course at first floor level. The symmetrical front elevation is five openings wide at ground floor. The central three openings are set within a slightly advanced section of wall under the cill course, each recessed within a semicircular-headed opening with smooth rendered tympanum. A plat band links all three at spring of arch level.

The central opening contains a 1/1 sliding sash window (with the top sash smaller) fitted with horns, English detail timber cill to the front of the box, stooled painted granite cill, and original wrought bars. The flanking two openings are original six-panelled doors, now sheeted with plywood. The left door, leading into the police station, has a peephole and is surmounted by a metal traditional police lamp (formerly blue glazed). The right door accesses the barracks. The remaining two ground floor openings, one at either side, are sash windows matching the central window but without tympana. At first floor, three central 1/1 sash windows sit at eaves level. All front elevation windows are likely originally to have had glazing bars: 6/9 panes at ground floor and 6/6 at first floor.

The left elevation has a 6/9 sash with semicircular tympanum at ground floor right and a 6/6 sash above; the remainder of wall is blank. The rear elevation contains at ground floor level (left to right) a cube porch with dashed walls and concrete roof with rear door, a uPVC kitchen window, a plywood kitchen door in original opening, a small 2/2 sash window lighting the cupboard below stairs, a 6/6 sliding sash window, and a small infilled high-level window to the former cell at right. The right elevation has two 1/1 sliding sashes (as the façade) to either side with the left one having a semicircular tympanum, and at first floor left a 1/1 sash.

The front is bounded by a rubble stone garden wall with gate piers, above which a modern security fence and sentry post have been constructed. A large modern complex stands to the rear.