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

21 St. Colman's Park is a three-storey Georgian house with basement and attic, built in granite between 1820 and 1839. It forms one of a pair with the neighbouring property (the two were designed and constructed together as a single unified block), and together they make an imposing presence on the corner of John Mitchel Place and St. Colman's Park. The elevations have survived virtually unaltered, and the original floor plan and much of the original interior character remain intact.

The principal façade faces St. Colman's Park and is three bays wide at ground floor level, narrowing to two bays above. The roof is hipped with a short ridge running at right angles to the façade, covered in natural slates and carrying a low rendered chimney. Two skylights sit to the front. A further pitched roof, also in natural slates, runs off the apex at the right-hand side back to the rear wall, where it terminates in a rendered chimney stack shared with the adjoining house. Ogee-profile cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

The walls are of squared granite rubble laid in regular courses, with cement-rendered brick dressings to all window and door openings (the render has fallen away around the basement openings). Raised and stepped V-jointed quoins mark both corners. The basement walls project slightly from the main wall face and are separated from the ground floor above by a chamfered string course.

Five granite steps lead up to the front door, which sits slightly offset to the right of centre. The door opening has a semi-elliptical rendered head and a half-round beaded edge to its granite casing. The door itself is a painted timber six-panel door with raised and fielded panels, and a vertical bead running down the middle to simulate a pair of doors. An Art Nouveau-style letterbox and house number are fixed to it. The doorcase is flanked by two partly-attached Tuscan columns supporting an entablature, with a semi-elliptical transom above. The transom is currently sheeted with plywood on the outside, but its spider-web pattern cast-iron tracery is still visible from the inside.

To the left of the door are two window openings, and one to the right. On the two upper floors there are four identical window openings, equally spaced across the façade. Those on the second floor are slightly reduced in height. The rendered surrounds to the jambs are stepped, following the profile of the underlying brickwork. All windows have granite cills and three-piece keystoned granite lintels. The openings are currently sheeted externally with plywood on which glazing bars have been painted to imitate 6-over-6 sliding sashes; however, the actual original sash windows survive on the inside and conform to this arrangement, though the ground floor right window (and possibly the left) is a 2-over-2 sash. Of particular note, the first-floor left window and the second window from the left on the floor above are blind — inserted purely to complete the symmetrical composition, with no opening behind them. The stonework on the inside face of the wall at these positions does not appear to be later infilling, suggesting these were always dummy windows by design.

A passage runs around the outside of the building at basement level. A wrought-iron railing encloses this passage at ground level, returning up both sides of the entrance steps. It is fixed to a finely dressed chamfered granite plinth and fitted with urn-topped cast-iron posts. The passage was originally accessed by a door set in the left-hand cheek of the chamber beneath the entrance steps, but this opening is now infilled. To the left of the entrance at basement level are two dummy windows in the style of 6-over-3 sliding sashes — the stonework on their inner faces suggests these were never true openings. Both have metal security bars. To the right of the entrance, the basement is lit by a single 6-over-3 sliding sash window aligned with the opening above. At the far right is a second basement door, also now infilled. All basement windows have external metal security bars, which are probably not original.

The left elevation forms the two left-hand windows of a four-window-wide façade fronting John Mitchel Place. Taken as a whole, this elevation is the mirror image of the St. Colman's Park frontage, including the railings around the basement passage. The walls and window openings are as already described. Here the actual windows are visible rather than boarded: all are 6-over-6 sashes except at ground floor, which is 6-over-1, and at basement level, which has two 6-over-3 sashes with metal bars. The remainder of this elevation belongs to the adjoining property.

The right elevation, which is in effect the rear of the premises, has a shallow natural-slate hipped-roof return rising two storeys in line with the gable chimney, with half-round metal gutters. The walls of this return, which encloses the internal stairwell, are cement rendered. A large semicircular-headed window lights each half-landing, and a smaller version of the same form lights the half-landing between the second floor and the attic. A modern flue rises on the left. There is also a small window on the left-hand cheek of this return at second-floor landing level. At ground-floor level on the left is a single-storey return.

To the right of the main elevation at ground-floor level, an uncoped rubble granite wall (brought to courses) encloses a rear yard. Set into this wall is a coach arch with V-jointed finely dressed jambs, a semi-elliptical imposted head with raised keystone, all in granite, and fitted with a large sheeted double-leaf timber door. The wall immediately to its left and above is cement rendered. Three 2-over-2 sliding sash windows to the left light the one-storey return mentioned above.

To the right of the yard wall stands a three-storey outbuilding set at right angles to St. Colman's Park, divided between this property and the neighbouring house at 9 John Mitchel Place. Its street gable was designed as the end piece to St. Colman's Terrace. The roof is natural slate, hipped at the street end and gabled at the other, with half-round metal rainwater goods. The side walls are of rubble granite and the street gable of squared rubble, both 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 and then fitted with a window (which has also since been infilled). There are two window openings on the first and second floors, the second-floor openings being reduced in height. All openings have red brick heads and stepped jambs, with three-piece granite lintels over the first-floor heads. All windows except at ground floor have granite cills, but all are now infilled with red brick. These openings may have been designed purely for visual balance to this end of the terrace rather than for practical use.

On the yard-facing side of the outbuilding belonging to this property, there is a door at ground-floor level with an infilled window on either side. On each of the upper floors is a loading door, aligned with the ground-floor left window. To the right of each loading door is a window opening with a granite cill. All first-floor openings have three-piece keystoned granite heads; those at second-floor level have red brick heads and stepped jambs.

The building is shown on the 1835 Ordnance Survey map. The 1835 valuation records it as belonging to James McAllister — who also owned the adjoining pair and the terrace outbuilding — but notes it as unfinished, indicating it was still under construction at that date. The 1863 valuation describes it as having three and one-third storeys and a basement. The house and its railings are listed together as a single extent, and the property lies within a conservation area.