Parochial House, 40 Jonesborough Village, Newry, Co. Armagh, BT35 8HP

A late Victorian parochial house dating to the 1880s–1890s, set within planted grounds on the east side of Jonesborough Village Road and accessed by a tree-lined avenue. The building is a two-storey, three-bay structure aligned north-east to south-west, with a hipped natural slate roof rising to a central flat section crowned by a crested terracotta ridge and finials. Cement-rendered and painted walls are supported by a high advanced basecourse and decorated with four moulded stucco stringcourses—one at each cill level and one below each window head level. Cement-rendered chimney stacks with corbelled eaves courses support moulded cast-iron rainwater goods. A small decorative gablet projects from the centre of the façade, finished with stucco coping, moulded kneelers, and a foliated cast-iron finial.

The principal elevation faces north-west and is abutted centrally by a projecting entrance porch with a flat roof concealed behind a moulded and curved parapet with dentilled cornice. The porch has a window to its front face, above which sits a decorative swept and fluted panel with narrow cornice. The left cheek contains the main entrance, accessed by three granite steps; an eight-panelled timber door with narrow transom over sits within a segmental-headed reveal with keyblock, flanked on either side by three-quarter engaged foliated colonettes set on chamfered bases. The right cheek is similarly detailed but has been infilled with a shallow segmental-headed window (formerly a door accessed by two granite steps) with cement-rendered cill. Left and right bays each contain a window to both floors; ground-floor windows are segmental-headed whilst those to the first floor are flat-headed. At first-floor centre, set below the decorative gablet, is a taller, narrower margin-paned window with red-coloured margins and a pair of fixed semicircular-headed transoms above, breaking the eaves level. Its head is framed by a pair of pilasters with fluted heads rising from the top stringcourse and supporting a dentilled cornice. The gablet contains a two-centred arch with a central roundel and four smaller curved panels. All windows throughout are 1/1 sliding sashes with horns, set in stucco reveals with moulded heads and smooth rendered architraves, with painted granite cills.

Each side elevation consists of two windows to each floor; ground-floor openings are segmental-headed. The rear elevation is completely abutted by two returns, both two-storey and detailed as the main house but without stringcourses and with plain openings and metal security grilles. The right bay is abutted by a return aligned perpendicular to the main block, with a pitched natural slate roof and chimney set slightly left of centre. Its left cheek has a window at ground-floor level; its right cheek has two equally aligned windows to each floor and a narrower window to the extreme right end at ground-floor level. The end gable is blank. The second (left) return has a monopitched natural slate roof, hipped to its left end, and contains a modern eight-panelled timber door to its left and a window to its right. The first floor has a pair of narrow windows to the left and a semicircular-headed margin-paned 2/1 sliding sash window to the right.

To the rear is a range of mid-18th-century outbuildings, formerly part of a military barracks. These consist of a three-bay single-storey block to the south-east and a coach house to the south-west, both with pitched natural slate roofs, advanced eaves courses, and lime-rendered rubble stone walls with brick trim to openings. The south-east block has seven openings: two windows and a door to bay one; a window to bay two; a door and two windows to bay three. All window openings have been infilled with concrete blocks and have cement-rendered architraves and painted stone cills; internally they retain 6/6 sliding sashes with horns. Each door opening, accessed by two granite steps, features a painted stone Gibbsian surround with keystone, with doors of tongue-and-groove sheeting surmounted by a semicircular-headed transom (formerly a radial timber fanlight). The left gable is abutted by a ruinous outbuilding of no interest. The right gable is blank. The coach house has a large tongue-and-groove sheeted sliding door to its north-east face, with a 6/6 sliding sash window to its right in the remains of a painted stone Gibbsian surround (head now modified). Other elevations are blank.

The parochial house is set back from the main road, accessed by a pair of wrought-iron gates supported on rusticated granite ashlar posts surmounted by pyramidal caps. A maturely planted avenue formerly lit by cast-iron lights leads to the house.

The parochial house first appears in the Valuation Revision book of 1897 and was occupied by Reverend J. Smith the following year. The rear buildings were formerly part of a military barracks. The Ordnance Survey Memoir of circa 1837 notes that the barracks was unoccupied at that time, serving merely as a barn, with the military having been withdrawn approximately twelve to fourteen years prior. Contemporary sources record that part of the barracks was subsequently converted into a private residence, part of which was later demolished to make way for the parochial house.