St Patrick’s Parish Hall, 33 Downshire Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1EE

St Patrick's Parish Hall, Newry

A substantial double-height hall with semi-basement, built in Gothic Revival style and facing west onto Downshire Road. The building is constructed of harled stone over a smooth rendered base course, with a pitched natural slate roof topped by a smooth-rendered crenellated parapet to the front elevation.

The west façade is the principal architectural feature, rendered in painted line render with a dramatic composition. A wide projecting central bay is flanked by stepped pilasters topped by granite pinnacles, with matching pinnacled corner pilasters terminating narrower bays on either side. Electric lights are mounted at each corner. The centre of the façade contains a three-order Gothic doorway, accessed up three steps. The doors are double-framed and sheeted, painted, with a radial fanlight over. Painted lettering above reads "Church of Ireland Hall" with "Scriptural School" inscribed below the arch. Above the doorway is a fine tracery window, four lancets wide with diamond quarries and cusped heads, topped by a small cinquefoil rose. This sits within a plain two-order chamfered opening with a moulded granite cill. A moulded granite plinth runs across the façade and continues around the remaining three walls as a moulded string course. A projecting granite eaves course runs below the parapet, which features a low chimney at the front left. The gable apex is surmounted by a pinnacled ashlar granite bellcote, open to all sides but now without its bell. The flanking bays each contain a single Gothic lancet window with diamond quarries, set in splayed openings with moulded granite cills at spring level of the door arch.

The forecourt is approached via a swept tarmaced area with a concrete surface, flanked by rubble granite retaining walls. The ground falls away to basement level at the rear, creating a void space beneath the entrance forecourt. This void has been vaulted in stone and is accessed from the left through a timber door set in modern blockwork; the right side is completely infilled. The façade wall within this passage is of unrendered squared granite rubble brought to courses, with a modern concrete floor and no openings into the hall.

The north elevation has smooth rendered pilasters at each end, those on the right shared with the façade (with shared pinnacles) and those on the left pinnacled but without finials. Three widely spaced windows run across both basement and upper sections in line. The basement windows are four-paned with Gothic heads and crude Y tracery, with opening casements to the lower panes, set in splayed render reveals with moulded granite cills. The upper windows are three lancets wide with Gothic heads and hopper vents to the central upper panes. They feature diamond quarries with a single large diamond to the central lower pane, with ventilators now inserted to the left and right windows, set in similar reveals to those below. A small modern single-storey porch abuts the basement at right, with a monopitch corrugated asbestos-cement roof, a top-hung casement window to the end, and a framed and sheeted door to the left side.

A projecting return extends from the rear, narrower and slightly lower than the main block, with a pitched natural slate roof and metal rainwater goods. The exposed wall of the return is blank. The right cheek of the return contains a Gothic arched door at basement level, accessed up one step. The door is rectangular, framed and sheeted with painted finish, with a boarded-over fanlight. It sits in a splayed render reveal with granite plinth blocks to each jamb. The gable of the return is abutted by a one-storey boiler house with an oil tank on top of a flat concrete roof, featuring a sheeted door to the end and a top-hung casement window to the right. Small round-headed windows, each divided into three panes with a top-hung opening casement to the central pane, sit at either side of this addition on the gable of the return. Above, at the centre, is a Gothic window comprising two four-paned casements with a broad central mullion and a three-part fanlight over, set into a splayed render reveal with a moulded granite cill and wire mesh grill. Near the apex is a rose window of eight radial panes with a central quatrefoil light in a circular boss, rendered in plain glass with crude detail.

The left cheek of the return has a Gothic-headed door at basement level, opening up two concrete steps. The doors are modern flush double-leaf with a plain transom over, set in a splayed render reveal with granite plinth blocks to the jambs.

The south elevation mirrors the north elevation except for the insertion of a fire escape door to the right of the right-hand upper floor window, just above the string course. A metal fire escape descends the wall towards the front. Windows are fitted with plastic security covers.

The setting is bounded to Downshire Road by a rendered stone wall with square rendered piers topped with projecting concrete caps. Original wrought-iron gates with cast finials provide the principal entrance. Boundaries to the left and rear are enclosed by modern corrugated metal security fencing from the adjoining former police compound. The southern boundary is defined by an overgrown laurel hedge.