5a Sandy's Place

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey (+semi-basement and attic) polychromatic brick Gothic Revival building on east side of Downshire Road. Pitched natural slate roof with scalloped terracotta ridges, coped sandstone verges and moulded kneestones. Half-round metal gutters and square-section down pipes with cast-iron hoppers attached to walls with scrolled brackets.

Walls to facade are generally red brick laid in English garden wall bond. Basement wall is raised forward with chamfered brick course at window head level. At ground floor, two courses of black brick run across façade. There is a yellow and black cruciform course between ground floor and first floor. Five courses of red brick specials form decorative corbelled eaves course. Rising from wall head at centre is a decorative brick gable detailed as main roof and with a band of black, red and yellow brick running between its kneestones.

A broad granite paved path from street and eight granite steps lead to main entrance at ground floor left. To centre of steps is a modern tubular metal handrail. Brick parapets to each side with chamfered sandstone coping and tile course below. Main entrance consists of a pair of three-panel (2/1) painted timber doors; bottom panels are raised and fielded. Doors are set within a three-order Gothic headed opening trimmed with chamfered sandstone. Ashlar sandstone infill to arch head with central glass roundel etched with Masonic symbol (compass and square) on an open bible inscribed Psalm CXXXIII. To ground floor right are three 1/1 sliding sash windows (top pane smaller), with external security grills. Each window shares a splayed sandstone cill. Piers, stepped jambs and heads are in stop-end chamfered ashlar sandstone. Over lintel is a recessed ashlar sandstone panel with inset quatrefoil and daggers, above which is a vee-jointed segmental sandstone relieving arch. The aforementioned courses of black brick run across façade at window cill level and at door arch spring level. All sash windows to façade are unusual as they have projecting timber cills to bottom sash in the British style, rather than the typical Irish flush cill.

At basement middle is a pair of 1/1 sliding sashes with flush splayed sandstone cills, stop-end chamfered brick jambs, and sandstone lintels, also stop-end chamfered. Over head is a segmental panel of herringbone brickwork defined by a segmental stop-end chamfered sandstone relieving arch.

To right of basement façade is a red brick screen wall rising part-way up ground floor. At centre is a three-order Gothic arch in chamfered brick containing a modern stained timber framed-and-sheeted door. A course of black brick runs across screen at mid height of door and at arch spring level. Top of wall has black- yellow-red-yellow-black brick five-course band, under corbelled red brick wall head which is coped with roll-top terracotta ridges.

To first floor are three equally spaced pairs of 1/1 sliding sash windows. They share a continuous moulded sandstone cill course, which is one course above the yellow and black band between ground and first floor. Each pair has chamfered sandstone jambs and rounded-corner heads. The heads of the window pairs at left and right support corbelled brick eaves courses. Over the middle set of windows is a Gothic two-order sandstone arch with ashlar sandstone infill, and across the top of which is the polychromatic brick band between the kneestones of the gable, and over which is a moulded sandstone string course. The gable above is decorated with black brick set in diamond patterns. At apex is a sandstone trefoil vent opening immediately above which is a band of yellow red and black bricks.

Left and right elevations are wet dashed. Left gable is devoid of openings and that at right has, at basement, a single fire escape door with modern security grill.

Basement to rear is at ground level due to the sloping topography of the site. Rear elevation is abutted at left and centre by a monopitched return which rises almost to eaves level, and to right by a slightly lower flat roofed extension. The monopitched return is also abutted at left by a single-storey flat roof extension which projects beyond gable of main block. Rear wall of main building has line render wall and contains a single modern four-pane casement window above the right extension. The add-ons have wet dashed walls and no features of interest.

The parapets of path leading to main entrance turn out to gateposts at street. These posts are of red brick and octagonal in section. They spring from square bases set on plinths trimmed with chamfered sandstone. There is a course of black brick at the base and at the head of the octagonal section on which is set a pitched octagonal sandstone cap. There is an identical set of gateposts (with small metal gate) at right end of boundary wall, from which a concrete path descends to door in screen. Boundary wall to street is wet dash rendered with heavy concrete coping.

Historical information

Erected for Newry Masonic Order in 1887 by Alexander Wheelan, a local builder, to designs by W.J. Watson. First cited in Valuation book in 1888.

Secondary Sources:

1. Irish Builder, 15 June 1887 (vol.29)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Two-storey (+semi-basement and attic) polychromatic brick Gothic Revival building. A showpiece elevation of Gothic Revival with venetian stone detailing and polychromatic brickwork. Its relatively late date and replacement of interior fabric mean it is not of special architectural or historic interest.