Warehouse, Basin Quay, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6HX

Warehouse, Basin Quay, Newry

A two-storey symmetrical warehouse aligned east-west along the south side of the former canal basin, with abutting structures. The main building is fronted to the north by a facade 13 openings wide on both floors. The pitched roof is of artificial slate with a raised rendered right verge and half-round metal rainwater goods to the front. Walls are of quarried granite rubble laid randomly over a raised base course, with painted chamfered brick trim used along the top of the base course, on a projecting string course between ground and first floors, along the eaves, and as trimming around doors and windows, all of which have stepped jambs.

At ground floor level, the main entrance is centrally positioned with a modern roller shutter door beneath a flat concrete head. A smaller roller shutter door with a timber head occupies the third opening from the left, with a pair of Gothic brick relieving arches above it identical to those over paired windows to its left. The remaining 11 ground floor openings contain windows. These have jambs and Gothic heads with stop-end chamfers and sloping cills of dressed granite. All have metal security bars fitted to their outsides. The space between the top of the window frames and the underside of the heads is infilled with brick with stop-end chamfered bottom edges.

The five windows to the left of the main entrance are 2/2 sliding sash timber, with the two at the extreme left paired. The six windows to the right of the entrance are four-paned windows of diminished height, with the space between their bottom frames and cills infilled with brick set in herringbone pattern.

At first floor level, all openings are in line with those below. At the middle is a red-painted t+g loading door whose head is partially contained in a gable rising above eaves level with plain collared bargeboards. There are three small four-pane fixed windows on either side of this door, flanked by loading doors in the third and eleventh openings from the left, similarly topped with bargeboarded gables. Windows similar to those at ground floor level occupy the remaining two openings at left and right, with those at left paired. A modern metal canopy projects across the entire length of the facade between ground and first floor levels.

The left gable is abutted by a lower two-storey cement block store, with internal inspection indicating a doorway between them at first floor level. The exposed section of the gable is of brick. On the rear elevation, a flat roof of an infill structure between the warehouse and a one-storey Belfast truss shed runs across at eaves level. A section of wall opposite the main entrance has been removed to facilitate access to this shed. The rest of the wall is smooth rendered, though internal inspection shows it to be of random rubble. The first floor has always been devoid of openings, and any original ground floor openings have been infilled.

The right gable is abutted by a one-storey shed with a Belfast-truss roof. Its outside face has been smooth cement rendered. The upper section has been largely rebuilt in concrete block, with only a small portion of the original random rubble walling surviving. A modern door has been inserted at first floor level, accessed by open wooden stairs from the shed.

At the west and south, abutting the main warehouse, is a one-storey double-pile shed with Belfast truss roofs.