21 St. Colman’s Park, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2BX

A three-storey Georgian granite house with attic and basement, forming one of a pair on the corner of John Mitchel Place and St Colman's Park. The building is Grade B+ listed.

Principal Façade

The main frontage faces St Colman's Park and is three bays wide on the ground floor, reducing to two bays above. The roof is hipped with a short ridge running perpendicular to the façade, topped by a low rendered chimney. It is covered with natural slate and includes two skylights to the front. A pitched roof with natural slate runs from the apex to the back wall, terminating in a rendered chimney stack shared with the adjoining house. The walls are constructed of squared granite rubble in regular courses with cement-rendered brick dressings around all window and door openings (render has deteriorated around the basement openings). Raised and stepped V-jointed quoins mark both corners.

Five granite steps lead to the front door, slightly offset to the right of centre. The door opening features a semi-elliptical rendered head with a half-round beaded edge to its granite casing. The painted timber door has six raised and fielded panels with a vertical bead down the middle to mimic double doors, and is flanked by two partly-attached Tuscan columns supporting an entablature with a semi-elliptical transom above. The transom is externally sheeted with plywood, though its ornamental spider-web cast-iron tracery is visible from inside. An Art Nouveau-style letterbox and house number are affixed to the door.

Left of the door are two window openings; a third sits to the right. The first and second floors each have four identical, equally-spaced window openings, with those on the second floor slightly reduced in height. All windows have granite cills and three-piece keystoned granite lintels. The openings are currently sheeted externally with plywood on which glazing bars are painted to simulate 6/6 sliding sashes, though the original sashes survive internally and conform to this design (some ground floor windows are 2/2). Two windows (first floor left and one on the second floor) are blind and inserted purely for visual symmetry.

The basement walls project slightly and are separated from the ground floor by a chamfered string course. A wrought-iron railing runs around the basement passage at ground level, returning up each side of the entrance steps, affixed to a finely dressed chamfered granite plinth with urn-topped cast iron posts. A passage encircles the building at basement level.

On the left side of the basement are two dummy 6/3 sliding sash windows, both now fitted with external metal security bars. To the right of the entrance, a single 6/3 sash lights the basement. A second basement door to the right is now infilled. The left-hand basement door, previously accessed via a chamber beneath the entrance steps, is also infilled. All basement windows have external metal security bars (probably not original).

Left Elevation

The left side forms the rightmost two windows of a four-window-wide elevation fronting John Mitchel Place, mirroring the St Colman's Park frontage with identical railings around the basement passage. The walls and window openings follow the same design as the main façade. The actual windows here remain visible: all are 6/6 sashes except the ground floor (6/1) and basement (two 6/3 sashes with metal bars). The remaining section of this elevation is part of the adjoining property (HB16/30/005B).

Right Elevation and Rear Extensions

The right elevation (back of the building) features a shallow hip-roof return in natural slate, rising two storeys in line with a gable chimney. This return extends the internal stairwell and has half-round metal gutters. Its walls are cement-rendered. Large semicircular-headed windows light each half-landing, with a smaller similar window above lighting the half-landing between the second and attic floors. A modern flue rises at the left, and a small window on the left side of the return lights the second-floor landing.

At ground floor left is a one-storey return. An uncoped rubble granite wall brought to courses encloses a yard at the rear. Within this wall, towards its right, is a coach arch with vee-jointed finely-dressed granite jambs and a semi-elliptical imposted head with raised keystone, containing a large sheeted double-leaf timber door. The wall to its left and above is cement-rendered. Three 2/2 sliding sash windows light the one-storey return.

Outhouse

A three-storey outhouse stands at right angles to St Colman's Park, shared between this property and 9 John Mitchel Place. It has a natural slate roof, hipped to the street end but gabled at the other end, with half-round metal rainwater goods. The side walls are rubble granite; the street gable is squared rubble, all brought to courses.

On the street gable at ground floor right is a coach arch, now fitted with a top-sliding timber door. To its left is a narrower door opening, subsequently infilled with a window that is also infilled. Two window openings exist on each of the first and second floors, the latter diminished in height. All openings have red brick heads with stepped jambs; first-floor heads are topped with three-piece granite lintels. All windows have granite cills (except ground floor) but are infilled with red brick. These openings may have been designed for visual balance rather than functionality.

The yard-facing wall of the section belonging to this property has a door at ground floor level with an infilled window on either side. Loading doors occupy each upper floor, aligned with the ground-floor left window, with windows to their right. First-floor openings have three-piece keystoned granite heads. Second-floor openings have red brick heads with stepped jambs. The remainder of this elevation belongs to the adjoining property.

General Features

Ogee cast iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout. The basement walls project slightly and are separated from the ground floor by a chamfered string course. The building retains its original internal windows despite external plywood sheeting, and the historic wrought-iron railings with urn-topped cast iron posts remain intact around the basement passage and entrance steps.