3 + 5 Downpatrick Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey / two bay 19thC commercial premises on W side of Downpatrick Street. Each bay was originally a different building as each has its own separate roof and has different detailing. That to right was part of a larger block of 3 buildings.

Each bay has a pitched natural slate roof (slates to left bay are more finely dressed) and clay ridge tiles. Left bay has painted rendered chimney with projecting cap (two terracotta pots) to its S (left) gable. Rendered skew to left gable. Plastic half-round gutter supported on advanced eaves course. Cast-iron downpipe to left of façade. The roof to the right bay is similar but higher due to the rise of the street. No chimney. A plastic gutter runs length of façade draining into an adjacent property at N (right) which shares the same roof. All walls are smooth rendered and painted.

Wall of left bay is plain and is filled with shop front at ground floor. Entrance is to right side and consists of a painted timber door with two raised and fielded bolection-moulded panels below a plain glazed top panel. At left there is a fixed rectangular window with flush cill. Modern plastic advertising canopy runs length of façade, above which is a modern plastic fascia board and projecting sign. Two 2/2 vertically divided sliding sashes to first floor window of left bay. Both have exposed timber boxes and painted granite cills.

Right bay is flanked by two broad slightly advanced piers with plain block capitals between which is a broad eaves course. Advanced chamfered basecourse and thin rendered cill course run between ground and first floor. Ground floor has a rectangular single paned shop window (with no cill) to centre. Centred to first floor is a 6/6 sash window.

The exposed party wall between the left and right bays is rendered and blank; so, too, is the left gable which is abutted by a lower building.

Rear elevation is much altered and of no interest. Its walls are cement rendered. Both bays have a single sheet metal door and an assortment of partially infilled metal framed windows to ground floor. Upper floor windows are also metal framed and irregularly spaced. Rear elevation fronts an alley and access is gained through the vehicular entrance of No 13 Downpatrick Street (HB 16/08/30).

The right gable of the right bay is abutted by a building of similar height..

Historical information

This block is probably the same as that cited in the 1835 and c.1862 Valuation books. Buildings are shown on this plot in 1776, but whether this block is of such an early date is uncertain.

Primary Sources:

1. Meade Estate: A Map of the Town of Rathfriland (1776) Now in Norfolk and Norwich Record Office.
2. PRONI 1834 Valuation town map (1:1760), VAL 1D/3/3.
3. PRONI 1835 First Valuation book, VAL 1B/ 358A, p.135; /358B, p.42..
4. PRONI 1860 Valuation revision map (1:500), VAL 12E/114/1/2.
5. PRONI c.1862 Second Valuation book, VAL 2B/3/60B, p.20.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This type of building was once common in Ulster towns and is becoming increasingly rare. This shop is unusual as it incorporates two clearly different buildings, although each is ordinary in its own right. It is not of special architectural or historic interest.