13 St. Colman’s Park, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2BX

13 St. Colman's Park is a three-storey house with basement, two bays wide, constructed of squared rubble granite brought to courses. It forms the fourth building from the top of a seven-building terrace that slopes down St. Colman's Park in Newry. The entire terrace is of considerable architectural merit, sitting within a cohesive group that forms one side of the square and represents mid-19th century town planning initiated by James McAllister, who also erected the block at the corner with John Mitchel Place.

The building has a pitched natural slate roof. The street façade steps down slightly from no. 11 and sits at the same level as no. 15. A rendered chimney rises on the left party wall, and half-round gutters share a metal down pipe with no. 15.

At ground floor, the right bay contains a four-panel painted timber door (a modern replacement) with a small rectangular transom light above. The door head and jambs are cement rendered with a moulded architrave and scrolled consoles supporting a projecting entablature. To its left is an 8/8 sliding sash window, and below that a large three-pane picture basement window. The basement walls are rendered. Three-piece keystoned lintels cap the ground and first floor window heads. At first floor are two 6/6 sliding sash windows aligned with the ground floor openings. At second floor are three smaller 3/3 sash windows. All windows are modern reproductions featuring granite cills with cement-rendered heads and stepped jambs over brick.

Wrought iron railings with cast-iron urn-topped posts sit atop a chamfered granite plinth, running along the front of the basement passage and returning along the exposed side entrance. Similar railings front the other houses in the terrace and the corner block.

At the rear, walls are rendered to basement and ground floor, unrendered above, with half-round metal rainwater goods. A one-storey extension with flat corrugated-asbestos roof and pebble-dashed walls abuts the left side. The basement has an outside passage with a two-pane modern door and modern 1/1 top-hung window. The extension has a modern door on its back wall and modern window on the right cheek.

A two-storey outbuilding runs along the back of the premises as part of a continuous block the length of the terrace. It has a natural slate pitched gable roof and coursed rubble granite walls. At ground floor on the north-facing elevation is a semi-elliptical-headed brick-trimmed coach arch with double-leaf tongue-and-groove doors (now partially boarded over), with a sheeted timber loading door directly above. Both floors have infilled ventilation slits on the right. The yard elevation has a sheeted timber door at ground floor right and a window opening at left, above which at first floor is an opening secured with original vertical wooden bars. The roof is ruinous and rainwater goods are missing.

Historical records show the building as "McAllister's Terrace" on the 1835 Ordnance Survey map. It was noted in 1835 valuation as belonging to James McAllister but unfinished, suggesting construction was ongoing but probably completed shortly thereafter. The terrace originally included buildings nos. 1, 3 and 5 (above no. 7), all now demolished. The building is currently in commercial use as an office, within a conservation area.