Office Building, Former Gasworks, Kilmorey Street, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2DN

Former Gasworks Office Building

A two-storey red brick building on Kilmorey Street, Newry, erected between 1860 and 1879. First appearing in valuation records in 1873, it was built on the site of a coal shed within the Newry gasworks complex, which had been established in 1822 as the second gasworks in the province after Belfast.

The building adopts the Venetian Gothic style popularised by John Ruskin in the mid to late 19th century, though it has undergone substantial alterations that have diminished its architectural integrity.

The street frontage is dominated by a more recent single-storey red brick block with a flat roof and coped parapet, which projects forward. This incorporates a shopfront now protected by a modern metal roller shutter. Behind this rises the main two-storey structure, which has a steeply pitched hipped roof of natural slate with two bands of fish scale slates and a brick dormer at centre of the facade rising from eaves level, with half-round metal gutters.

The first floor of the main block features three semicircular-headed window openings. Below runs a moulded sandstone cill course, and above sits a moulded ogee sandstone cornice. A line of black brick runs across at the spring level of the window heads. The jambs are chamfered, and the heads are of finely-dressed and painted sandstone. The space between the window frames and arch intrados is infilled, possibly an original feature. Modern 1/1 top-hung replacement windows have been inserted. The dormer gable contains a recessed panel bearing a cartouche with what appears to be a datestone of 1878, the panel head also in dressed and painted sandstone. The dormer gable is parapeted with dressed sandstone coping and knee stones, and is surmounted by a large crocketted stone finial.

The left elevation displays a course of black brick at both ground and first floor levels, aligned with the spring level of openings and continuing from the front facade. Below the cill course runs a band of red and white bricks. At centre is a blind door panel set within a semicircular sandstone-headed recess, with a single window opening directly above, identical to those at the front but retaining its original two-pane vertically-divided timber framing with quatrefoil motif. A small lean-to store abuts at the right. The right gable shows similar decorative brick coursing. At ground floor is a four-panel painted timber door in an opening matching that at left, with a modern 1/1 window above in an opening comparable to that on the left elevation.

A two-storey return section abuts the back wall across its full width, with a hipped natural slate roof, exposed rafter ends, and half-round metal rainwater goods. The walls are cement-rendered, with a small cement-rendered chimney rising from the right pitch. Two modern three-paned windows and a door occupy the ground floor, with a small 2/2 sliding sash window directly above the door. The left cheek (south-facing) has two modern three-paned windows at ground floor with metal security grilles, and a 1/1 top-hung window at first floor. The right cheek is blank.

On either side of the shopfront are two bricked-up openings, each flanked by a pair of tall rendered gate piers with oversailing pyramidal copings surmounted by gabled finials.

The building is of industrial archaeological interest, as it documents the administrative operations of Newry gasworks during its productive phase. The gasworks was acquired by Newry Town Commissioners in 1879. Coal-gas manufacture ceased in 1968, after which liquid propane gas was imported, mixed with air, and distributed. All production ended in 1987, and most of the site was demolished in the same year. Although the building exhibits Venetian Gothic characteristics, the extent of alteration has rendered it unsuitable for listing.