Stewart's Wine Barrel, 1 Monaghan Street, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6BB

Stewart's Wine Barrel, 1 Monaghan Street, Newry

A two-storey, two-bay polychromatic brick building set in terrace on the north side of Monaghan Street. The use of polychromatic brick and paired columns is typical of this area and period, as seen at nearby comparable buildings on Monaghan Street and Lower Catherine Street.

The building has a gabled asbestos-tiled roof with a red brick chimney to each gable. The chimneys are stepped and banded with courses of yellow and black brick, coped with concrete. Ogee cast-iron rainwater goods are mounted over yellow-brick brackets, with a downpipe at the right; asbestos gutters are fitted at the rear.

The ground floor façade has been cement rendered and painted over a projecting rendered base course. The first floor is of red brick over a protruding granite string course, which also forms the cills to the windows. The façade is embellished with two bands of yellow brick—one at meeting rail level and the other at window head level. Both bands are three bricks high and decorated with crosses formed in black and red bricks. The eaves brackets are underlined by a course of black brick.

At the left of the façade is a semicircular-headed doorway with a pole-moulded reveal, containing a modern nine-panelled timber door with a semicircular transom infilled with timber boarding. To the right of this door is a pair of 2/2 sliding sash windows in pole-moulded reveals. The windows' semicircular heads share a Corinthian-headed demicolonette resting on their common painted granite cill. A cast-iron grille with quatrefoil motifs protects the bottom sash and is affixed to the cill. Just right of centre is a second wider entrance with an identical surround containing a modern aluminium door with a glazed semicircular transom and side light. A modern boxed roller shutter has been affixed at the front. To the right of this door is a large shop window comprising four fixed painted timber windows with four transoms over, set in a roll-moulded chamfered reveal over a painted moulded granite cill. The wall below this opening has two recessed rectangular panels, with a boxed metal roller shutter affixed above. A modern plastic shop sign runs the length of the façade below the string course, reading "Stewarts Wine Barrel". Four shallow painted timber pilasters are set to the ground floor, each with a recessed vertical panel—one at each end of the building and one on either side of the main shop entrance. The outstepping of their stone base courses indicates these features are original.

The first floor is lit by four equally spaced 1/1 sliding sash windows. The upper band of yellow brick is punctuated with three sets of black bricks where it crosses each segmental window head. A metal beam projects at the middle of the façade from just below eaves level, from which a sign formerly hung; the swinging action has gouged out a groove in the wall below.

The right gable is abutted by a building of relatively recent construction. The left gable is cement rendered with a first-floor window on the left, now infilled with concrete blocks. The rear façade is cement rendered throughout and is abutted at the right by a lower two-storey return with a pitched asbestos-slate roof and cement-rendered chimney over its end gable. At ground floor left is an infilled window, with another infilled window at first-floor level in line with it. The first-floor rear return's left cheek has an infilled window. The rear face at right has a modern metal-sheeted door. A modern single-storey flat-roof extension with a metal-sheeted door abuts the gable. The extension in the angle has a door and window on its end elevation and two modern windows on its left cheek; the right cheek has an infilled door and window.

The building first appears in the 1879 Valuation revision book and is first cited as a public house in the 1893 valuation. It retains some original features, but the level of alterations and loss of original material are extensive.