South Lodge, 51 Downshire Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1EE

South Lodge is one of a pair of two-storey detached houses set back on the east side of Downshire Road. Dating from the early 19th century (1800-1819), it retains features characteristic of an early lodge.

The house has a hipped artificial slate roof with a pitched return roof tied in at the rear centre. A rendered chimney with five decorative octagonal terracotta pots runs parallel with the façade behind the central ridge on the rear pitch. Rainwater goods are semicircular metal with downpipes to the left and right elevations.

All walls are painted wet dash with smooth raised eaves course and chamfered smooth render base course. The front façade has smooth rendered stepped quoins to left and right, and a smooth render platband running across just above meeting rail level of the windows to both floors. There is no door to this elevation. Three 1/1 sliding sash windows to each floor are arranged in line but asymmetrically placed, each with smooth render architraves and painted granite cills. The first floor windows are diminished in height.

The left elevation has quoins to the right corner and is without openings or base course, with a circular metal downpipe to the middle of the wall. This wall continues to ground floor left as the right cheek of a rear single-storey extension.

The right elevation is abutted at right by an open wet-dashed porch with pitched artificial slate roof. The front door is set within an original elliptical opening with modern sidelights and a tongue-and-groove sheeted transom panel. Above the porch is a 3/1 sliding sash window without horns, featuring a painted granite cill, smooth render architraves, and a modern security grill.

The rear elevation is abutted at centre by a two-storey gabled return, and to ground floor right is a single-storey modern extension which wraps around the gable of the middle return at ground floor. The remaining wall to the rear elevation of the main block is wet dashed, with a modern top-hung window at ground floor right with painted granite cill and modern grill, and a small fixed window without cill above at first floor. The return roof ties into the main roof at a lower eaves level. The gable of the rear return is abutted at ground floor by a lean-to extension and is blank above, with its right cheek blank. On the left cheek, between ground and first floor, is a tall opening with casement window, painted granite cill, and modern grill.

The one-storey extension has a lean-to modern tiled roof with bargeboards and painted wet dashed walls. Its rear wall has a modern 2/1 top-hung casement with concrete cill to the right and a modern sheet metal door to the left.

The front garden has recently been cleared and covered in stone chippings, with the rest of the front area in tarmac. To the rear is a two-storey modern outhouse building with dashed walls and profiled sheet metal roof.

The building is shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map and was occupied in 1838 by John Quinn. It has been cited as South Lodge from the 1902 edition of the Ordnance Survey onwards. The building is now in office use.