51 Main Street, Hilltown, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5UJ

A late 18th-century two-storey plus attic, three-bay double-pile former Church of Ireland rectory stands on the south side of Main Street in Hilltown. The building is graded B2.

The pitched natural slate roofs are fitted with semicircular metal gutters and downpipes, though these are mounted on an inappropriate modern timber fascia. Each pile carries a cement-rendered and coped chimney to each gable, and the front pitch of the right gable on the rear pile has rendered skews.

The walls are lined with cement render and have a chamfered painted base course. The north-facing front elevation has a narrower central bay containing the main entrance, which is accessed by a single granite step. The doorway has a reproduction stained timber door with nine raised and fielded panels (the top three square), and is topped by a rectangular transom light with Gothic glazing bars, all set within a broad timber frame. Modern coach lamps flank the doorway. The ground floor left and right bays each have a pair of 6/6 reproduction sliding sashes with horns, exposed boxes and painted cills. The first floor has matching windows in the left and right bays, with a single window in the central bay above the door. Modern telephone cables abut the centre of the facade. The left gable of the front pile is blank with an advanced chimney breast at its centre.

The left gable of the rear pile has two 4/4 sliding sashes at ground floor, two 6/6 at first floor, and a small 2/2 in the gable to the right, all detailed as those to the facade. The right gable of the front pile is blank, and the shared valley with the rear pitch has been built up.

The rear elevation is abutted at its centre by a narrow two-stage, two-storey return. The left section of this return has a pitched natural slate roof with boxed eaves and modern plastic rainwater goods. Its rear wall has a sheeted-over rectangular opening at ground level, a 4/4 sash between ground and first floor, and a 6/6 sash between first floor and attic, indicating a stairwell. The right section of the return is lower and carries a metal water tank on its flat roof, with a modern top-hung 1/1 window between ground and first floor on its right cheek. The remaining wall of the main block to the left of the return is abutted by a single-storey extension with blank walling above. The exposed wall section to the right is blank. The rear pile has a 4/2 sash at ground floor left, two 6/6 sashes to first floor, and two 2/2 sashes in the attic.

The front garden is enclosed to the street by a rusticated concrete block wall with matching gate piers supporting modern wrought iron gates to the left and a small pedestrian gate to the right. West and east boundaries are enclosed by hedges. A drive runs up the left gable of the house with a path to the front door. The lawn contains mature trees and shrubs. To the east is a paddock planted with mature trees, and to the west a similar paddock now occupied by a post-war petrol filling station.

At the top of the drive stands a gateway framed by a pair of tall dashed rubble stone piers with chamfered ashlar copings and rounded fieldstone finials. Early 20th-century wrought iron gates hang from these, the right one of which is damaged.

The rear yard is enclosed to the south by a range of single-storey outbuildings with natural slate roofs and whitewashed rubble stone walls. The west boundary is a blank rubble wall. The east boundary is enclosed by a single-storey, single-bay outbuilding and gateway with dashed and painted rubble stone piers with steep pyramidal copings. These carry flat iron gates with dog bars and decorative heads, with a pedestrian entrance to the left now without its gate. The yard has a concrete floor.