58 Hill Street, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1AR

This three-storey Gothic Revival building with attic occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Hill Street and Marcus Square. The principal entrance facade faces Hill Street, whilst a second equally elaborate elevation addresses Marcus Square, the two unified by imaginative corner detailing. The roof is gabled and covered in artificial slate with terracotta ridges and leaded parapet gutters. Both main facades are finished in lined cement render with a chamfered base course and granite detailing. Each floor features a banded, foliated colonette at the corner where Hill Street meets Marcus Square.

Hill Street Elevation

The main entrance is positioned on the ground floor to the right. It comprises a pair of large modern timber doors set within a deeply recessed, stop-end chamfered Gothic-headed opening. The Gothic head is filled with a circular lime render transom panel inscribed 'Belfast Banking Co. Limited'. Between this panel and the door is a fascia advertising the current owner, affixed to a modern roller shutter box. Above the arch head projects a gabled canopy supported on consoles and short paired colonettes. Each console is run-moulded render with a foliated drop-finial. Each colonette—the second of each pair set behind the first—has a chamfered plinth and a foliated head. At eaves level on either side of the gable is a concave cornice. The main section of the gable is filled with the doorway arch, whilst the gable head is decorated in diaper work and breaks through the first floor sill level. The gable ridge is decorated on either side by three gablets.

To the left at ground floor is a three-paned fixed timber window—the central pane filled with a blue painted panel—with a leaded Gothic transom featuring a quatrefoil motif. The window sits within a Gothic-headed opening with a canted flush granite sill. Its jamb is chamfered and flanked on either side by slender foliated colonettes rising to just below the spring of the arch. Each colonette is banded and has a foliated head. The construction of these colonettes is unusual: they appear to be render on a metal core. The window head is roll-mould chamfered and has a plain hood mould with foliated label stops. A foliated stringcourse links the colonettes of the window and the main entrance. In the spandrel to the left of the window head is a plain render roll-mould chamfered roundel.

The centre of the ground floor elevation is dominated by a canted pier rising to a cusped gablet, the head of which touches the foliated stringcourse that rises around the pier and runs across the facade. Above the stringcourse, the pier supports three truncated foliated colonettes—with foliated drop-finials to either side—on which rests the run-moulded corbelled base of the first floor oriel. The head of the colonette on the Hill Street/Marcus Square corner meets the stringcourse that crosses the elevation. In the wall between the pier and the main entrance is an automated teller machine. To the left of the ground floor window is a projecting plastic sign advertising the occupant.

The first floor is symmetrical, comprising a canted oriel at the centre with a single window on either side. The walls are lined render with a moulded stringcourse between first and second floor levels and a chamfered corner to the left with a banded foliated colonette inset as at ground floor. The oriel has a 1/1 sliding sash window (with grill over) to each cheek. Each window has a chamfered sill with a run-moulded sill course. Below each sill is a rectangular apron panel: the front panel has three quatrefoils inset, whilst each side panel has two quatrefoils—similar panels appear in the oriel parapet at second floor level. The windows to the wall on either side of the oriel are identical: each is a 1/1 sliding sash with Gothic-headed top pane set within a stop-end chamfered Gothic-headed opening. The opening has a chamfered sill, a moulded sill course shared with the oriel, and an apron panel below (as on the front of the oriel); the right window has no apron panel as the head of the doorway rises from below. Each has a grill over and a run-moulded hood mould with foliated label stops.

Between the first and second floors is a moulded stringcourse. At second floor, the walls are lined render with a continuous sill course and a stringcourse that rises as a hood mould over each window. This storey has two windows on either side of the oriel roof. Each window is a 2/2 vertically divided sliding sash within a Gothic-headed chamfered opening; below each sill is an apron panel inset with four quatrefoils. In the spandrel on either side of each window head is a roll-moulded roundel panel.

The oriel roof is lean-to, canted, steeply pitched and covered in natural slate. Its ridge terminates at stringcourse level. The parapet is coped and aligned with the moulded sill course. Each canted face of the parapet has an apron panel detailed as those below the oriel windows.

There is a stringcourse between second floor and attic level. The attic has a central gabled dormer rising from the wall head. It has a run-moulded eaves cornice with knee stone and two gablets up each side of the ridge, topped by a truncated octagonal pinnacle. The gable is inset with a pair of small (compared to those on the rest of the elevation) two-paned modern timber casement windows set within Gothic-headed openings, the heads rendered with decorative render roundels. Each has a chamfered reveal and a decorative cast iron Gothic balconette resting on a projecting sill supported on four moulded brackets with holes punched through. Over the pair of windows is a shared hood mould. In the spandrel over the windows is a roundel panel inset with a blind quatrefoil. The gable head is decorated in diaper work. On either side of the gable dormer are parapet walls with stepped coping, each terminating with octagonal pinnacles at each corner. The pinnacles are terminated in octagonal spires with ball finials. The pinnacle to the left is partially missing. The walls behind the parapet rise to the eaves level of the central dormer and are slate-hung with artificial slates.

Marcus Square Elevation

Details at ground floor match the facade: chamfered base course, corner colonette to the right, foliated stringcourse to window head level, roundel panels in each window spandrel, and a plat band between ground and first floor levels. There is a door to the left and four equally spaced windows to the remainder. The narrow door is stained timber and sixteen-panelled, with a Gothic head set within a chamfered Gothic-headed opening. The windows are detailed exactly as the ground floor window to the Hill Street facade.

At first floor, the walls are lined render with a moulded sill course, a plat band between first and second floors, and a banded colonette to the right corner. There are five windows: that to the left is narrow and aligned with the door below, whilst the other four are aligned with the ground floor windows. All are 1/1 sliding sashes detailed as the windows on the Hill Street facade. The area between the ground floor plat band and the first floor sill course contains five grilles as on the Hill Street facade; the second and third from the left are covered with a fascia. Over the first and third windows from the right are deep run-moulded corbel brackets rising to stringcourse level and supporting balconettes to the second floor.

At second floor, the wall is lined render with a moulded sill course, a stringcourse at window head level rising over each as a hood mould, and a stringcourse between second floor and attic level. There is also a colonette to the right corner and a roundel panel in each window spandrel. There are five windows aligned with those at first floor: all are 2/2 sliding sashes except the narrow opening to the left, which has a top-hung casement. The first and third windows from the right have projecting balconettes with fretted quatrefoil panels to the front of each cheek and a moulded parapet at sill level.

The attic has a gabled dormer similar to that on the Hill Street facade, rising from the wall head and centred over the second window from the right. It has a run-moulded eaves cornice with knee stones and two gablets up each side of the ridge, topped by a truncated octagonal pinnacle. The gable is inset with a pair of small (compared to those on the rest of the elevation) two-paned modern timber casement windows set within Gothic-headed openings, the heads rendered with decorative render quatrefoils. Each has a chamfered reveal and a decorative cast iron Gothic balconette resting on a projecting sill supported on four moulded brackets with holes punched through. Over the pair of windows is a shared hood mould. In the spandrel over the windows is a roundel panel inset with a blind quatrefoil. The gable head is decorated in diaper work. On either side of the gable dormer are parapet walls—that to the left longer—with stepped coping, each terminating with octagonal pinnacles at each corner; the left parapet has an additional pinnacle to balance the composition. The pinnacles are terminated in octagonal spires with ball finials. The pinnacles to the left and right are partially missing. The cheeks to the gabled dormers have small modern doors leading to each parapet gutter.

Rear Elevation

The right gable is a party wall with the adjacent property, the remaining wall finished in plain cement render. The rear elevation is gabled and rendered. It is abutted, up to attic gable level, by a three-storey thin return with a shallow lean-to roof. Abutting this are two other three-storey returns: the left one is gabled, whilst that to the right has a mono-pitch roof. All returns are rendered with artificial slate roofs. Filling the ground floor between the returns, and projecting beyond their gables, is a modern flat-roofed extension.

The rear wall of the main block has a 2/2 sliding sash window to the attic gable. The shallow return has two modern casements to the left at second floor—one over the right pitch of the left return roof—and two windows to the first floor at right and centre. The rear wall of the ground floor extension is rendered with four modern timber windows and a sheet metal security door to the right.

The left return—its floor levels are at half-landing of the main block—has two windows in its rear wall, both 2/2 sliding sashes: one to the left of the first floor and another to the centre of the second floor. Its left cheek abuts the adjacent property, and on its right cheek are three second floor windows, all 2/2 sliding sashes.

The right return—floor level at half-landing level of the main block—has two large 6/6 sliding sash windows, one to the first and one to the second floor. Its right cheek abuts the adjacent property and its left cheek is blank.

The rear yard is enclosed by high rendered walls.