7 Sandys Street, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1EN

7 Sandys Street, Newry

Number 7 Sandys Street is the right one of a pair of three-storey, two-bay houses positioned at the end of a terrace of similarly detailed buildings along the south side of Sandys Street. The pair has been much altered and now possesses generally plain features, with most internal detail lost and no special architectural or historic interest remaining. The building is recognised for its contribution to the streetscape through its inclusion in the Conservation Area.

The pitched roof is covered in artificial slate with exposed rafter ends, and carries a modern red-brick chimney set parallel to the ridge at the right. Semicircular metal rainwater goods serve the roof.

The street façade walls are painted, lined and rendered. The main entrance, positioned at the left, comprises a four-panel painted timber door with a transom light above. The opening has a keystoned head beneath a bracketed moulded entablature. To the right of the door is a canted single-storey bay with a moulded cornice and parapet surrounding a flat roof, with a downpipe positioned to the right. The bay contains a 2/2 sliding sash window at its centre and 1/1 sashes on each cheek. The first and second floors each have two 2/2 sliding sash windows, with those at the top floor diminished in height. All windows have painted granite cills. With the exception of the door, which is offset to the left of the window above it, all openings align vertically.

The house is separated from the footpath by a wall comprising a rendered and chamfered plinth topped by a rendered brick wall. This plinth formerly carried metal railings, traces of which survive at the right end of the façade. The left gable is a party wall shared with adjoining premises. The right gable, which does not sit at right angles to the main façade, is painted, lined and rendered with no openings, and continues as a single-storey yard wall with a door insert. The rear wall is rendered.

A two-storey return abuts the right bay. On the main block at the left, a modern large casement window serves the ground floor, with 1/1 sliding sashes above on the first and second floors. Above the return is an identical window arrangement at the half-landing between the first and second floors. The return itself features a flat roof and rendered walls, with three windows to the left cheek (facing the yard) at first floor level. Abutting the back wall of the return is a one-storey return also with a flat roof and rendered walls, containing a window and door on its left cheek.

The building first appears in the 1879 entry of the Valuation revision book, when its lessor was William Nesbitt, a name associated with several newly built houses in the area at that time. The building was constructed between 1860 and 1879. It was previously recorded as HB16/26/041 in Windsor Hill ward and was delisted from the statutory register on 29 March 2006.