8 Corry’s Square, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6AW

8 Corry's Square, Newry

This is the right (east) building of a symmetrical pair of three-storey Georgian classical houses with an attic storey, located on the north side of Corry's Square. The two houses, now a single property, form an important contribution to the square as mirror-image structures of early 19th-century date, probably constructed between 1820 and 1839.

The building has a pitched natural slate roof with two smooth rendered chimneys—one to the left gable and one to the party wall with the adjacent property—and a single cast iron skylight on each pitch. Semicircular metal rainwater goods run to a downpipe at the right corner of the façade.

The façade is painted lined render with stepped render quoins to the left corner. A moulded string course runs between the first and second floors, with a similar course above the second-floor window heads, and a raised render eaves course at the top. The main entrance is at ground floor left, accessed by four granite steps with wrought iron railing to the right, rising to a segmental-headed opening with ashlar granite jambs and archivolt. Behind the boarded-up opening is an aedicule comprising a pair of timber fluted Ionic columns (the left one rotten) supporting an entablature and flanking a ten-panelled raised and fielded door with bolection moulding. All façade windows are 1/1 sliding sashes with stop-end chamfered reveals and heads, granite cills, and have been boarded up. There are two windows to the ground floor left and three equally spaced windows to each upper floor; those to the second floor are diminished in height.

The left gable was formerly abutted by a lower building now demolished. The exposed wall to the left is random rubble with a four-paned modern window set in an earlier opening between ground and first floors. Above, the gable is line rendered with two 2/2 sliding sash windows with granite cills. The right gable is the party wall with number 7.

The rear elevation is painted coursed random rubble, abutted at ground floor right by a two-storey return or outbuilding and to the left by a flat-roofed extension. The upper floors have two windows each to left and centre. The first floor left window is an enlarged opening containing a four-paned modern casement. The first floor centre has a 3/3 sliding sash window positioned over the ridge of the return roof. Between first and second floors to the left is a three-paned modern window within an earlier opening. The second floor has single 6/6 sliding sashes to left and centre. To the right, between second floor and attic, is a 6/3 sliding sash window. The rear return functions as an outbuilding, enclosing the yard to right and rear and continuing to the rear of number 7. It has a natural slate roof and dashed walls with an assortment of metal-framed and sliding sash windows.

The building is shown on the 1835 town map. The 1838 Valuation Book describes it as measuring 26 feet 6 inches by 33 feet by 35 feet and occupied by Robert Erskine at that time. The 1863 Valuation measurements are broadly similar, indicating no significant alterations had occurred by then. The building and its adjoining neighbour had internal communication by 1902 and were under single ownership; they appear on the 1903 map as a hotel and are explicitly named as the Victoria Hotel in the 1921 Valuation. The building now retains most of its original features and is currently used as an educational building.