Hillside Terrace, Doran’s Hill, Newry, Co Down

Hillside Terrace, Doran's Hill, Newry

A terrace of five red brick houses with polychromatic decoration, built around the turn of the 20th century, stepping down the steep north side of Doran's Hill. Numbers 1–4 are aligned with the road, each positioned lower than the last, with Number 5 set at right angles at the bottom end.

All houses in the main terrace are gabled with natural slate roofs (except Number 1, which has been re-roofed with artificial slate), metal rainwater goods, and brick chimneys with raised bases, dentilled caps, and a course of yellow brick around the middle. The eaves are supported on corbelled brackets of yellow and black brick.

The road elevation of Numbers 1–4 is decorated with coloured brick: a yellow brick string course at the level of the middle of the ground floor windows and another across the first floor windows at the same level; black-yellow/red-black bands between ground and first floors, and between first and second floors. A moulded terracotta platband runs at first floor level, also forming the cills to the first floor windows. Above and between the top floor windows is a small yellow and black brick embellishment. The room bays break forward on all three floors, with gables featuring ornate fretted bargeboards at eaves level and finials (though the bargeboards to Number 1 are inappropriate modern replacements, and the finials are now missing to Numbers 1 and 2).

Just below the first floor of Number 4, at the extreme right, is a metal plate reading "Hillside Terrace". Each house has a door at ground floor left. Only the door to Number 3 appears original—four panels with glazed top pair and a rectangular transom light over. The others are modern replacements. The door openings have stop-ended chamfers around their edges. To the right are pairs of 1/1 sliding sash windows with granite cills, the openings having flat heads and stop-ended chamfers. An identical set of windows appears at first floor, with a pair of semi-circular headed 1/1 sliding sash windows directly above at second floor. The latter share a moulded terracotta cill extending as a platband across the window bay. Only the windows to Numbers 2 and 3 are in the original style; the others are modern plastic replacements. Number 1 has undergone substantial structural modification: a bay window and porch have been added at ground floor, with a monopitched artificial slate roof carried over both. The left gable is pebble dashed and painted, without openings. The right gable is abutted by Number 5.

At the rear, the walls are cement rendered with plain eaves. Each house has a skylight in its roof pitch. An original two-storey monopitched return abuts each house at the right, with a yard enclosed by a wall at left. These returns have cement rendered walls and a gable window. Above, on the wall of the main block, is a 2/2 sliding sash window on the half landing between first and second floor. Each ground and first floor room also has an identical window. Number 1 has been pebble dashed with its original windows replaced in plastic. A flat roofed annex has been added to Number 3, obscuring both its ground and first floor windows.

Each house has a small walled garden to the front. The walls of Numbers 2–4 are original, of rendered brick with square piers and pyramidal caps. Number 1 has a modern pebbledash wall.

Number 5 is a three-bay, two-storey house set at right angles to the terrace and abutting the end gable of Number 4 at a lower level, with a two-bay, two-storey annex to its right gable. The main portion has a hipped natural slate roof with a chimney identical to those of the terrace, positioned in the middle of the block, with metal rainwater goods and eaves supported on moulded yellow brick brackets. The terracotta platband and two bands of yellow brick that cross the terrace façade continue around the street gable and façade of Number 5, as does the band of black, yellow and red brick just below first floor level. There is also a band of yellow brick just below first floor window head level.

The gable facing the street has pairs of 1/1 sliding sash windows at ground and first floors contained in a projecting bay, with dormers featuring fretted bargeboards and finials similar to the main terrace. Both sets of window openings have stop-ended chamfers; the bottom pair share a common granite cill. The three bays of the main elevation also break forward; the first and third bays (as viewed from the left) are identical to the street gable. The middle bay has a projecting single-storey entrance porch with a flat roof with parapet coped in black brick and yellow and black brick string courses beneath. It contains a 10-panel modern door with rectangular transom light over, and a 1/1 margined sliding sash window to its left cheek. The margined 1/1 sliding sash window at first floor over the porch has a semicircular head.

At the right on the main elevation is a smaller hip-roofed two-bay annex set back to form a separate unit. At ground floor left is a modern 10-panel door with rectangular transom light over, to its right a 1/1 top-hung plastic window, and to the right again a door into a utility room. At first floor are two 1/1 sliding sash windows in line with the doors below, without stop-ended chamfering; each has a head of alternating yellow and red brick. The right gable of Number 5 is abutted by a later monopitched cement-rendered garage. The wall above is cement rendered with a bracketed eaves course, containing a 1/1 sliding sash window. The rear wall is cement rendered.

Numbers 1–4 first appear in the Valuation Revision book entry dated 1902, each leased by Alex Johnston and valued at £15. Number 5 first appears in 1907, occupied by Alex Johnston with a value of £16 10s. 0d. This suggests that the developer erected the terrace and subsequently built Number 5 as a house for himself. Johnston is recorded as a carpenter in the 1908 Provincial Directory. He may be related to Samuel Johnston, builder and contractor of Queen Street, listed in the 1902 Directory.

The terrace has been marred by inappropriate alterations, particularly to Number 1, where structural modifications and modern replacements have compromised the original design. Windows to several properties have been replaced with modern plastic versions of different design, and various additions, including the flat-roofed annex to Number 3, have obscured original features.