1-17 Lower Catherine Street, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6BE

Terrace of nine two and a half storey, two-bay polychromatic brick houses on the east side of Lower Catherine Street, Newry. They are of local interest as a systematic development of the street in the later 19th century.

All houses except number 17 are occupied; number 15 is vacant and number 17 is derelict. They share a common pitched fibre cement slate roof with red brick chimneys positioned at the left end of houses to the left of the coach arch (numbers 11-17) and to the right on the remainder. All houses feature decorative bands of black and yellow brick and projecting rendered copings. Rainwater goods—a mixture of metal and plastic—are supported on projecting eaves courses over painted moulded brackets; between the brackets are diamond panels of black tile.

The ground floor walls of the street facade are smooth cement rendered; numbers 1 and 3 are also pebbledashed. The first floor walls are of red brick with a projecting rendered string course between the two floors. The quoins of the end house at left (number 17) are stepped, raised and rendered at ground floor, and of stepped yellow brick at first floor. All first floor window openings have polychrome jack arches with granite cills. A string course of yellow brick connects the heads. Between the heads and eaves brackets are two parallel lines of black brick, between which is a ribbon of four yellow bricks set in quatrefoil pattern around a black brick. Between each first floor window is a single quatrefoil yellow-brick setting.

The facade is interrupted at ground floor by a semi-elliptical coach arch between numbers 9 and 11. The wall and window above this arch have been rebuilt without embellishment but retaining their bracketed eaves. Between the first floor windows of number 17 is a circular smooth granite panel in a black brick setting, inscribed "Caulfield Terrace 1879" and bearing the interlocked initials "JOH".

Door openings are positioned to the left on numbers 1-9 and to the right on numbers 11-17, surrounded by raised piers supporting strapwork consoles with entablature above. No original doors remain. Window openings at front comprise one to the room beside the door and two above, over ground floor openings. Only number 15 retains its original windows, all 2/2 replacement sliding sash windows. The facade of number 5 now incorporates a shop front with an enlarged ground floor window opening.

All houses originally had gabled timber dormers at the centre of the front pitch, now removed except for numbers 5, 15 and 17 (that to number 11 is a modern rebuild). Only number 15 is completely intact, with fretted barge boards, glazed single-pane cheeks, and a 2/2 sliding sash window with triangular louvre above at front. Skylights have been inserted in some houses, and numbers 1 and 3 have had their eaves raised to accommodate a third storey.

The arch between numbers 9 and 11 leads into a rear alley behind enclosed yards. The shallow semi-elliptical arch is of brick on a granite base and spring stones, with decorative encaustic tiles in quatrefoil pattern set into a band of black brick halfway up the jambs.

With the exception of number 15, all rear elevations have been significantly altered with the insertion of new skylights or dormers, flat-roofed extensions, modern windows and cement render. Number 15 is closest to its original state, with mortar-rendered random granite rubble walls, a one-storey scullery return at right (with door to yard and gabled slate roof), a 2/2 sliding sash window on the first-second floor landing (with brick trimming), and a 2/1 sliding sash window to the second floor bedroom (also with brick trim). The ground and first floor windows at rear are obscured by a modern timber-clad monopitch return at left. The left and right gables are abutted by adjacent houses.

The buildings were erected in the 1870s, beginning with number 1. They first appear in the Valuation Books in the following years: numbers 1, 3, 5 in 1873 (first occupied 1874); number 7 in 1876; number 9 in 1878; the coach arch and number 11 in 1879; and numbers 13, 15, 17 in 1881 (though also noted as "built on 1879"). They were built by John O'Hare, as indicated by the JOH inscription on number 17, shortly before the adjoining terrace of numbers 19-27. The terrace may be named after the original proprietor of the nearby Newry Distillery.