4 Newry Street, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4DN

4 Newry Street, Kilkeel — Mid-Georgian Town House, 1790

This is a very attractive mid-Georgian town house dating from 1790, retaining much of its original character despite subdivision and remodelling for commercial use at ground floor level. Though little original internal fabric survives (where inspected), the building is of early date in the town and remains of considerable architectural and local historical interest.

Nos 4–8 Newry Street together form a substantial three-storey, three-bay mid-Georgian town house in the classical tradition. The front elevation is symmetrical, with the central bay being half the width of the two flanking bays. A two-storey, single-bay extension abuts the left gable and is tied into the façade. The ground floor of the whole block is noticeably lower in height than the floors above, giving the building a top-heavy appearance. The property is currently in two separate ownerships, and both ground floors have been converted to commercial use, with their shopfronts obscuring the lower portions of the first-floor windows. The central and right bays form No 4; the left bay and extension form Nos 6 and 8. Together they constitute a single architectural composition.

The roof is pitched and gabled. No 4 has a man-made roof covering. The right gable is raised and coped in granite, with a smooth rendered and corbelled chimney to the gable. The eaves are corbelled, and rainwater goods are plastic to No 4. There is a single cast-iron skylight in the rear pitch.

The front (south-west) wall is rock-faced ashlar granite with flush pointing. At ground floor, No 4 has a post-war shopfront filling the entire width. The shop occupies the right bay, and the doorway to the upper floors is to the left, within the central bay. The ground-floor wall itself is ashlar granite, and the shop has a recessed central entrance flanked by timber display windows, with a chromium vent below each window bearing the name "Quinn" — a reference to the former supermarket chain. The left bay of No 4, which forms the central bay of the whole composition, contains an inter-war three-panelled door with six glazed top panes and a transom over. This door is not in its original position and is offset to the left of the openings above. Over both ground-floor bays runs a flush plastic fascia reading "M.J. SAWEY, LICENSED BETTING OFFICE."

Each upper floor of the main block contains five openings, with the extension to the left having a single window to each floor. At first floor, in the central bay of the main block (the left bay of No 4), is a spoke-headed 3/3 sliding sash window set within a semicircular-headed moulded ashlar opening with a raised impost and a projecting keystone. The keystone is inscribed with "17-90" and the letter "A" — the datestone attesting to the year of construction, with the "A" possibly referring to the original owner, Dr Alexander Adderly. The lower sash of this window appears once to have been six-paned, and the sill has been raised to accommodate the insertion of the modern door and shopfront below. In the right bay at first floor, over the modern shop, are two 6/6 exposed box sliding sash windows, which also appear to have been truncated to accommodate the shopfront below. At second floor, across all three bays, are similar sash windows with painted dressed granite sills, aligned with the openings below.

The rear elevation of No 4 is abutted at ground floor by a single-storey modern extension. The wall to the left (central) bay at first floor is partially rendered snecked granite rubble, with single large stones forming lintels. The right bay is wet-dashed. In the left (central) bay at first floor is a semicircular-headed fixed landing window, with a raised sill to accommodate a lean-to rendered shed with a corrugated roof which abuts below. To the right bay, a second lean-to abuts, with cement-rendered walls and an artificial slate roof. At second floor the windows are diminished in height and aligned with those below. The small semicircular-headed window to the left (centre) contains a 2/2 horizontally-divided sliding sash. The two windows to the right are replacement 1/1 sliding sashes.

Historical Background

The 1790 datestone establishes the year of construction. By the 1834 valuation, both halves of the building were described as a single property belonging to Alexander Adderly, M.D. It then measured 43 feet 6 inches by 26 feet by 22 feet and also had cellars. The addition to the left gable was separately measured at 12 feet by 24 feet 6 inches by 20 feet and was occupied at that time by a Samuel Floyd. An "Alexander Adderly, surgeon" is listed as resident in Kilkeel in 1819, though it is not certain whether this was at this address. It is possible that the letter "A" on the datestone refers to Dr Adderly as the original owner.

A secondary source records that in the 1790s, the young General Chesney of Packolet House was familiar with the surgeon: "Every Sunday, whatever the weather, the [Chesney] family walked the five miles to church in Kilkeel. On wet days the children arrived soaked and shivering to be thawed out before a blazing fire by Mrs Adderly, the doctor's wife, who fed them on gingerbread to sustain them for the ordeal of church."

By the 1862 valuation, the main house had been divided into two semi-detached dwellings, occupied by a John Reid and a Jane Annett. The son of a Mrs McErlaine — who lived in the house for 79 years until her death in 1998 — provided additional information: the property has been in the family since around 1900, operating as a millinery shop until approximately 1985, after which it has been vacant. He provided a poster from 1900 advertising the shop, as well as a photograph of the ground floor circa 1900 showing two separate shopfronts. The left shopfront (on the extension) had a four-panelled door with a four-paned transom, with a twelve-paned shop window immediately to its left, featuring a masonry stallriser, a plain fascia and thin brackets to either end. The right shopfront had a sheeted door with a five-paned transom, a window to the left, and thin timber pilasters rising to a plain fascia with an overhanging timber cornice. To the right of the central door on the façade was a third shopfront with a central door with three-paned transom, narrow pilasters and a fascia with overhanging cornice, flanked by sixteen-paned windows both with granite sills.

A photograph from 1951 shows No 4 with a traditional timber shopfront bearing a central door and an angled face emblazoned "John Quinn Ltd." A 1962 photograph records that this shopfront had by then been replaced by the current modern one. The 1951 photograph also shows that the central door between the two shopfronts was at that time directly in line with the semicircular-headed first-floor window — as opposed to its present position slightly to the left of centre. The door shown has a transom light, appears crudely placed in the façade, and has no ashlar dressings matching the window openings above. Its lintel is formed by the sill of the semicircular-headed window, which at that date had a lower sill level, with a six-paned bottom sash — lower than it is today. The 1951 photograph also confirms that the two first-floor windows to the right (over what is now Sawey's shop) were 6/6 sliding sashes.

The apparently crude positioning of the central door in the 1951 photograph raises a question about whether the main entrance was originally elsewhere — which is curious given the building's symmetrical composition. One theory is that the ground level in front of the building was at some point lowered, and what had been the cellar became the ground floor — which may also explain why the current ground floor is not as tall as the floors above. If the original ground level was a few feet higher, the main entrance may have been accommodated within the central first-floor window opening with the semicircular head, with that head serving as a fanlight and steps rising from the higher ground level to the door. Changes in ground levels have historically occurred elsewhere in Kilkeel — most notably at the junction of Newry Street and Greencastle Street, where the road is substantially lower than the buildings on either side — lending some credibility to this theory.