5a Sandy's Place, Downshire Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1ED

5a Sandy's Place, Downshire Road, Newry

A two-storey polychromatic brick Gothic Revival building, with semi-basement and attic, erected in 1887 for the Newry Masonic Order by builder Alexander Wheelan to designs by W.J. Watson. The building is recorded in the Valuation book from 1888. It stands on the east side of Downshire Road within a conservation area.

The building presents a showpiece Gothic Revival façade of polychromatic brickwork and venetian stone detailing. The pitched roof is of natural slate with scalloped terracotta ridges, coped sandstone verges and moulded kneestones. Half-round metal gutters and square-section down pipes with cast-iron hoppers on scrolled brackets complete the roof furniture.

The façade walls are predominantly red brick laid in English garden wall bond. A raised basement wall features a chamfered brick course at window head level. Two courses of black brick run horizontally across the façade, with a distinctive yellow and black cruciform course positioned between ground and first floor levels. Five courses of red brick specials form a decorative corbelled eaves course. At the centre, a decorative brick gable with a band of black, red and yellow brick running between its kneestones rises from the wall head.

Access to the main entrance at ground floor left is via a broad granite paved path from the street and eight granite steps, with a modern tubular metal handrail at centre. Brick parapets to either side have chamfered sandstone coping and tile course below. The main entrance comprises a pair of three-panel painted timber doors with raised and fielded bottom panels, set within a three-order Gothic headed opening trimmed with chamfered sandstone. The arch head contains ashlar sandstone infill with a central glass roundel etched with a Masonic symbol—compass and square on an open bible inscribed Psalm CXXXIII.

To the ground floor right are three 1/1 sliding sash windows, each with external security grills. The top pane of each is smaller than the bottom. They share splayed sandstone cills with piers, stepped jambs and heads in stop-end chamfered ashlar sandstone. Over the lintels are recessed ashlar sandstone panels with inset quatrefoil and daggers, above which are vee-jointed segmental sandstone relieving arches. Notably, all façade sash windows have projecting timber cills to the bottom sash in the British style, rather than the typical Irish flush cill arrangement.

At basement centre is a pair of 1/1 sliding sashes with flush splayed sandstone cills, stop-end chamfered brick jambs, and stop-end chamfered sandstone lintels. Over the head is a segmental panel of herringbone brickwork defined by a segmental stop-end chamfered sandstone relieving arch.

To the right of the basement façade is a red brick screen wall rising partway up the ground floor. At its centre is a three-order Gothic arch in chamfered brick containing a modern stained timber framed-and-sheeted door. A course of black brick runs across the screen at mid height of the door and at arch spring level. The wall top features a black-yellow-red-yellow-black five-course band beneath a corbelled red brick wall head coped with roll-top terracotta ridges.

At first floor are three equally spaced pairs of 1/1 sliding sash windows sharing a continuous moulded sandstone cill course positioned one course above the yellow and black band. Each pair has chamfered sandstone jambs and rounded-corner heads. The window pairs at left and right support corbelled brick eases courses. Over the middle set of windows is a Gothic two-order sandstone arch with ashlar sandstone infill. The polychromatic brick band between the gable kneestones runs across its top, with a moulded sandstone string course above. The gable above is decorated with black brick set in diamond patterns, with a sandstone trefoil vent opening at the apex immediately above a band of yellow, red and black bricks.

The left and right elevations are wet dashed. The left gable is without openings. The right gable has, at basement level, a single fire escape door with modern security grill.

The rear elevation, affected by sloping topography, has the basement at ground level. A monopitched return abuts the rear wall at left and centre, rising almost to eaves level, with a slightly lower flat-roofed extension to the right. A single-storey flat roof extension projects from the left, beyond the gable of the main block. The monopitched and flat-roofed additions have wet dashed walls with no features of architectural note. The rear wall of the main building is line rendered and contains a single modern four-pane casement window above the right extension.

The parapets of the path to the main entrance terminate in gateposts at the street. These are of red brick and octagonal in section, springing from square bases on plinths trimmed with chamfered sandstone. A course of black brick appears at the base and head of the octagonal section, topped by a pitched octagonal sandstone cap. An identical set of gateposts, with a small metal gate, stands at the right end of the boundary wall, from which a concrete path descends to the screen door. The boundary wall to the street is wet dash rendered with heavy concrete coping.

The relatively late date of construction and replacement of interior fabric mean the building is not of special architectural or historic interest, though it represents a notable local example of Gothic Revival design.