4-6 Rathfriland Road, Hilltown, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5UR

This shop and adjoining house, located on the west side of Rathfriland Road in Hilltown, Newry, represent a typical example of late 19th-century urban domestic and commercial property, reflecting the town's development around the turn of the century. The building was originally in common ownership with the adjoining house until around 1998.

The two-story, two-bay shop has a pitched natural slate roof with rendered and coped chimneys at both ends. The left chimney, shared with the house, features three octagonal Victorian chimney pots, while the right chimney has two similar pots. Semicircular metal gutters run along slightly advanced eaves, with a downpipe on the right side of the façade. The walls are rendered smooth with a contrasting base course. The principal elevation faces east towards the street. The left bay is wider than the right, and both are currently occupied by shop fronts. The left shop front contains a modern glazed timber door centrally, with an infilled transom above. Flanking the door are reeded timber pilaster jambs, with tall shop windows to either side. These windows have four segmental-headed panes, each divided into two by a central horizontal glazing bar. Timber pilasters similar to the door jambs frame the shop front and support a narrow timber fascia displaying applied plastic letters reading ‘Lowry’s Chemists’. The first floor of the left bay has three 6/6 sliding sash windows with horns, rendered architraves, vermiculated keyblocks, and painted sills. The right bay’s ground floor is occupied by a shop front, with a centrally placed doorway sheeted over with painted plywood, plain timber jambs, and a fascia above. Tall rectangular windows flank the doorway on both sides, mirroring the design of those in the left bay, but with plain horizontal heads. A 2/2 sash window is located on the centre of the first floor of the right bay, featuring a painted sill, stop-chamfered reveal, and a vermiculated keyblock. The left gable is a party wall shared with the house. The rear elevation has had all openings filled in, while the right gable has an infilled loading doorway at first floor level.

A valuation revision book entry from 1901 suggests the shop was erected around that time. A photograph from approximately 1978 and a slide from around 1970 show that the left shop previously had a pair of bolection-moulded storm doors with a glazed transom above.