Patrick Murphy and Sons, Abbey Yard, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2EG

Patrick Murphy and Sons, Abbey Yard, Newry

This is a complex of three connected buildings—a shop, store, and outbuilding—arranged to enclose two yards on the east side of Abbey Yard. The buildings are Grade B2 listed.

The shop has a hipped roof covered in fibre cement slate with terracotta ridges. Its façade is lined render with a raised render eaves course. A pair of large timber tongue-and-groove doors occupies the centre, with plain jambs and head; the left jamb retains the remains of stepped granite quoins with alternate stones raised. Above and around the doors, traditional sign writing is painted directly onto the render. On either side of the doorway, set high in the wall, are single tall exposed box 6/6 sliding sash windows with horns. Each has plain render jambs, painted granite cills, and five stepped flat-headed oversized projecting ashlar granite voussoirs with the centre keyblock projecting furthest. Each window is fitted with an external tongue-and-groove sheeted and braced shutter with original iron latches and hinges. The right elevation has walls matching the façade with no openings. The left elevation is mostly obscured by the abutting store. The remaining walls at eaves level are painted random rubble with a corbelled eaves course of three bricks, the central course comprising headers with pointed ends. The rear elevation is painted random rubble with a matching eaves course. Left of centre is a single sheet metal door with metal grill over; to the right is a narrow landscape-format fixed timber window with security bars. Below this window a low rendered and painted modern shed abuts the left side. To the extreme right, abutting this building and the store, is a modern rendered structure with a mono-pitched roof. A large yard to the rear is enclosed by a random rubble wall with modern semi-derelict sheds lining the interior. Access is via a pair of tongue-and-groove sheeted gates with wicket gate and original iron furniture, set within two brick piers on Courtney Hill.

The store is a single-storey structure abutting the shop's left elevation. It has a pitched roof in fibre cement slates with terracotta ridges, and a cast metal skylight to the left pitch. Rainwater goods comprise leaded valleys with a metal downpipe to the right of the front elevation. The façade gable wall is lined cement render with an uneven gable, longer pitched to the right. Offset to the left are a pair of tongue-and-groove doors within a tongue-and-groove headed Gothic-headed coach arch. The arch has chamfered granite jambs and head; its left jamb is shared with a similar arch in the outbuilding return. The left and right elevations are party walls with the outbuilding and shop respectively. The rear wall is a party wall with a small return, which is flat-roofed, cement-rendered, and has a single modern window to its rear wall. The return's right wall abuts the adjacent outbuilding; its left cheek is plain.

The outbuilding is two storeys, with its right gable abutting the store's left elevation. Its main roof is pitched in corrugated fibre cement with semicircular metal rainwater goods. The gabled return has an artificial slate roof hipped to the front Abbey Yard elevation. The façade walls are painted random rubble. Most ground floor openings have been infilled with concrete blocks except as follows: to the ground floor left is a pedestrian way to the rear yard (now blocked); at ground floor centre is a pair of new tongue-and-groove sheeted doors set within a semi-elliptical headed coach arch; to the left of this, between the alley and doors, is a low tongue-and-groove sheeted door. At first floor there are six openings: a narrow opening over the alley (now sheeted); a sheeted loading door over the ground floor door; a square louvred opening over the wall between the ground floor door and coach arch; a narrow louvred opening over the coach arch; a sheeted loading door in the wall to the right of the previous opening; and a small now-infilled opening to the extreme right. The right gable is a party wall with the store. The left gable abuts the outbuilding to the rear of numbers 7, 8, and 9 Abbey Yard. The rear elevation is painted random rubble with an alleyway opening to the extreme right and a loading door to its left at first floor. To the extreme left is a first floor loading door; the remainder of the wall is blank and abutted by a long derelict rendered concrete block shed. This rear elevation fronts the rear yard.

The return projects from the right of the façade with a roof matching the outbuilding and a hipped gable fronting Abbey Yard. Its façade gable is painted lined cement render with a pair of tongue-and-groove timber sheeted doors set within a Gothic-headed arch with chamfered granite jambs and head (to the left of the store arch in the façade). The left elevation is rendered random rubble with a raised render eaves course. The wall has a low segmental-headed opening leading to a half-height ground floor and, at first floor, a tongue-and-groove sheeted timber loading door with a small tongue-and-groove sheeted opening to its left. The right section of the wall cants forward as a tall arch spanning to the opposite yard wall, with random granite rubble in the spandrel above. The internal wall, accessed from the doors in the gable, has an infilled arch at ground floor and a single circular window at first floor.