73 Hill Street, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1DG

73 Hill Street, Newry

A four-storey rendered building with attic, containing two properties (nos. 71 and 73) on the east side of Hill Street. The pitched roof is clad in natural slate with one large chimney stack to each gable and parapet guttering with metal downpipes. The facade is rendered and painted on the upper floors.

The ground floor is dominated by classical detailing. Six fluted tapering Doric demi-columns rest on squared plinths, separating three doorways and two shop windows. A painted timber fascia board with moulded cornice, supported by the columns, runs the full length of the ground floor. At the centre of the fascia is a plaque reading: "Nos.71-73 Hill St / Site of the former Theatre Royal, / open 1783 / 1144 - 1994".

The right-hand doorway (serving no. 73) sits two granite steps up and comprises a pair of two-panelled doors with a projecting plastic sign fixed over the transom between the columns. To its left, the shop front of no. 71 has a two-paned window divided by a mullion with infilled transoms and a roller shutter box. The left doorway and adjacent shop front belong to no. 75. That shop front is a single pane window with a roller shutter box below the fascia, and a four-panelled door at ground level with two plain glass transom lights above. The door appears to have been lowered, with a second transom inserted to accommodate the lowered head height.

To the upper floors, pilasters separate each opening and rise to parapet level. Each pilaster rests on a moulded plinth, has a moulded abacus and ornate Grecian-style capital. The first floor has five equally spaced 6/6 sliding sash windows (without horns) set within deeply moulded architraves. Each window is topped with a Greek-key frieze and moulded cornice, with sills set on the plinth above the fascia.

The second floor contains five window openings of diminishing height. The first and second windows from the left are 1/1 sashes; the remainder are 6/6 sashes, all without horns, set within deeply moulded architraves and with plain render cills. The pilasters terminate in Grecian capitals at second-floor window head level. Resting on these capitals is a fascia of three broad bands of smooth render, which step out progressively as they rise.

The third floor has five equally spaced 3/3 sliding sash windows (without horns), aligned with openings below. Between these windows, in line with the pilasters beneath, are raised piers, each with an instepped panel rising to parapet level and topped with a decorative semicircular antefixae bearing an open anthemion to the centre. Between each window head and the parapet is a series of raised render bands supporting a projecting overhanging cornice that projects over each pier.

The right elevation is abutted by a neighbouring property up to second-floor level. The remaining walls above this point are lined render with a banded chimney to the gable and a single 3/3 sliding sash window with render cill on the third floor facing front (left side). The left elevation mirrors the right but with two windows and recent lined cement render.