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

17 St. Colman's Park, Newry, is a three-storey granite house with basement forming part of a seven-building terrace on St. Colman's Park. Built between 1820 and 1839 as part of mid-19th century town planning initiated by James McAllister, it is the second building up from the bottom of the sloping street.

The house is constructed of squared rubble granite brought to courses with a pitched natural slate roof. It is two bays wide and sits at the same height as number 19, slightly below number 15. The street façade is of considerable architectural merit, forming part of a cohesive terrace which defines one side of the square. All seven buildings in the terrace are of identical construction.

The ground floor features a four-panel painted timber front door at right with a small rectangular transom light above; its jambs and head are cement rendered with stepped detail. To the left of the door is an 8/8 sliding sash window. The brick head of a window serving the now-infilled basement remains visible below. At first floor are two 6/6 sliding sash windows aligned with the ground floor openings. The second floor has three smaller 3/3 sash windows. All windows have granite cills and cement-rendered heads with stepped jambs over brick. Three-piece keystoned lintels span above the ground and first floor window heads. A boot scraper formerly stood to the right of the door but has been removed. Wrought iron railings with urn-topped posts and a chamfered granite plinth run along the front of the house, returning up the side of the entrance way. A rendered chimney sits on the left party wall shared with number 19. Half-round metal guttering with a downpipe serves the right side shared with number 15. The passage along the outside of the basement has been infilled.

The house extends deeper from front to back than number 15, causing its rear wall to project beyond the general line of the terrace. A modern lean-to extension abuts the entire rear wall at ground floor. Above this, the walls are unrendered and feature a 6/6 sliding sash window at right on the first floor and a 3/3 sash on the top floor. At left are a 2x3 paned window to the half-landing between ground and first floors, and a 6/6 sash at the half-landing between first and second floors.

A two-storey outbuilding stands at the back of the yard, set back from the general line of outbuildings associated with the terrace. It has an asbestos slate gabled roof and coursed rubble granite walls. The north elevation (back wall) is blank. The east gable, facing along the laneway, has a modern shop entrance at ground floor comprising a glazed door and side light within a brick-trimmed arch, with a boxed metal roller shutter above. Directly above is a sheeted and painted timber loading door. The yard elevation shows a modern porched door at ground floor right, a 1/1 top-hung window at ground floor left, and an identical window at first floor. The left gable is abutted by the outbuilding of number 19.

The 1835 Ordnance Survey map identifies the terrace as McAllister's Terrace, which originally included numbers 1, 3, and 5 (above number 7), all now demolished. The 1835 valuation records the property as belonging to James McAllister, who also owned other buildings nearby, and notes it as unfinished at that date, implying the building was still under construction but likely completed shortly thereafter.