355 Newry Road, Newell’s Cross, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4SE

355 Newry Road, Newell's Cross, Kilkeel

A range of vernacular buildings facing north onto the Newry Road, comprising a dwelling, shop and agricultural outhouses. The building is now vacant and boarded up, but remains largely complete and original. Its corner location at the main road would have been highly advantageous for commercial use, which has operated from the site since at least the mid 19th century.

The main range is part two-storey and part one-and-a-half storey, arranged in line but with different roof heights. All roofs are natural slate with cement fillets to the verges and corbelled eaves courses. The higher section (shop and house) has rendered chimneys to the gables, as does the lower section. Gutters on the high section are galvanised metal and on the lower are plastic. The walls are harled and whitewashed.

The higher section is three bays long, with the central bay being a narrow stairwell. The shop occupies the right end bay. At ground floor level on the left is a two-pane-over-two-pane sliding sash window (now boarded) and to its right is a sheeted painted timber front door. The right bay contains a pair of sheeted doors on the left and a single-paned fixed timber shop window on the right, now closed and fitted with original boarded shutters secured by a horizontal wrought iron bar. The first floor has three windows aligned with the ground floor doors and left window, all two-pane-over-two-pane sashes (now boarded) with painted granite cills. The gables have no external features, though the left is abutted by the lower section. The front wall of the lower section is continuous with the main block and contains a single window at upper floor level.

Along the back wall to the left and centre is a single-storey lean-to outhouse with a natural slate roof and painted uncoursed rubble stone walls, with open doorways to the rear wall and right cheek. To the left side of the right bay, abutting the right cheek of the outhouse, is a narrow lean-to porch to the back door, accessed by a short flight of stone steps to a sheeted door on its right cheek and a blocked window on its rear wall. The remaining wall of the house contains a single two-pane-over-two-pane sash window (now boarded). The rear elevation of the one-and-a-half storey section has a pair of carriage doors at ground floor and a loading door at first floor. In front of the house, to the left of the house door, is a garden protected by a low wall and accessed by a stone stile. To the right is a paved area serving the shop entrance. The rear yard is stone-paved and there is a parallel range of single-storey outbuildings behind.

Historical development indicates a building at this location on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map. Its absence from the 1838 Valuation (as its value was under £5) suggests it was originally a one-storey vernacular structure. By the 1861 Valuation it was cited as Lisnacree Post Office, described as a "small spruce grove and post office" measuring six yards by five yards by one-and-a-half storeys and valued at £3 10s 0d. This shows the building had been rebuilt or raised by that date. The valuation increased to £4 15s 0d by 1882, which may indicate raising to its present two storeys. The building represents a fast disappearing but once common building type that combined domestic and commercial functions in a single structure.