15B Merchant's Quay, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6AH

15B Merchant's Quay is a three-storey, four-bay commercial premises dating from the 1820s–1830s, situated in Newry's conservation area. The building is distinguished by its external appearance, particularly its ornamental door surround, and by surviving internal features that reflect its mixed use as both residence and commercial store.

The front elevation faces Merchant's Quay and sits on a projecting stone base. The walls are lime rendered with banded rustication on the ground floor and ashlar-mimicking render above. A painted granite string course runs between the ground and first floors. The roof comprises two gabled pitches with a central valley and blocked ends, covered in asbestos slates; the original chimneys have been removed, though a skylight lights the rear pitch.

The principal pedestrian entrance is raised above street level, accessed by four granite steps running parallel to the façade, with a low parapet to their right and a concrete ramp latterly added at the base. In the wall at the start of the steps is a partially blocked basement opening. The main door is the building's architectural highlight: a six-panelled door with bolection-mouldings and a beaded muntin, fitted with letterbox, door knob and knocker. Above it sits a seven-light overlight. The door opening is off-centre, framed by a granite surround with pilasters, frieze and entablature. A projecting sign sits above and to the right.

To the left of the doorway are two semicircular-headed 1/1 sliding sash windows in moulded reveals, with granite cills, decorative rendered voussoirs above, and rectangular fielded apron panels. Immediately right of the door is a semicircular-headed coach arch with painted v-jointed ashlar voussoirs, since glazed over to form a shop front with boxed roller shutter and plastic signage. At the right end of the façade is a large flat-headed vehicle entrance leading to the rear yard, above which is a metal hoarding bearing "R.W. Toase Ltd Established 1929"; this hoarding obscures first-floor windows and a loading door.

At first-floor level are four equally spaced 6/6 sliding sash windows (without horns), each with moulded architraves, entablature and bracketed painted granite cills. The second floor contains four smaller windows: the first and third from the left are modern two-paned casements with left openers; the second is a 3/3 sliding sash with horns; the rightmost is a 2/3 sliding sash with a replacement top sash. The latter two appear to retain some original glass.

A slightly lower building adjoins the right gable, constructed of random rubble granite with no openings except beneath the vehicle arch, where a fixed single-pane window survives. The left gable is cement rendered and featureless. A large metal weighbridge sits flush with the ground just inside the vehicle entrance.

At the rear, the main block's walls are of unrendered brick, except above the vehicle entrance where they are of random rubble granite, the two materials meeting along a vertical join. A two-storey gabled return abuts the centre of the main block at an angle, with fibre-cement slate roof and cement rendered walls. It contains two 3/3 sliding sash windows at first floor facing the yard and casements to each floor of the gable. A single-storey modern extension, with cement rendered walls, flat felted roof, modern windows and door, abuts the return and rear wall as far as the vehicle entrance. The rear elevation of the main block shows extensive alteration to window openings, with only two original 6/6 sliding sash windows surviving: one at first floor and one on the half-landing between first and second floors.

The building's history reflects Newry's commercial development. The 1836 first valuation records the store (now at ground level) as occupied by Maguire and McParlane; the main block above was occupied by Denis Maguire, owner of Newry Distillery on Monaghan Street, though by 1838 it had passed to the National Banking Company. The 1863 valuation records both premises under single ownership (James Hening). Valuation records suggest the vehicle arch was not cut until after 1930, undertaken by the Toase family, who occupied the premises from around that time. A Lawrence photograph of circa 1870 shows the store once had a projecting beam over its eaves above the loading doors; the main façade otherwise appears much as today, save for its original two chimneys.