15 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

A two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian mill workers' terraced dwelling built around 1874 from local stone, possibly to designs by civil engineer John Hardy. The house forms part of a formal terrace of 18 similar dwellings that make up the western side of College Square, a planned late-Victorian square containing 53 dwellings in total arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of randomly-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite with stepped red brick dressings to door and window jambs. The stone cills are painted. The main entrance and windows have square-headed openings formed in gauged brick. The house is positioned in an L-plan form facing northeast, with a single-storey rear return projecting into an enclosed rear yard.

Exterior Features

The dwellings are grouped in pairs along the terrace, each pair symmetrical with doors grouped to centre, flanked on opposite sides by single windows at ground floor level. The pairs are set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping, which rise to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. Stepped red brick quoins run vertically down each front northeast facade, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set. Single unpaired dwellings occupy each end of the terrace.

The pitched roof is covered in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The rectangular-section red and buff brick chimney to the northwest has recessed panels of buff brick, a raised corbel course below a decorative chimney cap with four terracotta clay pots and two buff clay pots. Flush eaves are finished with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Modern uPVC half-round guttering and circular-section galvanized metal downpipes have been installed, with the front downpipe recessed into the stepped red brick quoins of the facade.

Principal Elevation

The front elevation faces northeast. The fenestration is regular and near-symmetrical, with two windows to first floor level aligned with ground floor openings. All windows are top-opening timber casements. The ground floor has a stepped red brick surround with gauged brick arches and flush keystone detail to the door head. The window on the northwest side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill.

The modest front garden is laid to lawn with mature shrubs and is enclosed by hooped painted metal railings. A similar foot gate, hung on slim posts, opens to the southeast. A paved path from the gate leads to a four-panelled painted timber door with a semi-circular glazed section at the top containing three radial glazing bars, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above.

Side and Rear Elevations

To the southeast, the building is attached to No. 14 College Square West. To the northwest, it is attached to No. 16 College Square West.

Access to the rear southwest-facing elevation is limited, but visible sections show original stone walling to first floor with two top-opening timber casement windows with stone cills (one to the northwest has broken glass). Ground floor has a painted finish with a top-opening casement window to centre and a diminutive window to the southeast. The single-storey monopitched rear return at the northwest has a painted render finish. The yard boundary walling is of randomly-coursed rock-faced local stone, now partly rendered to the northwest, with a painted sheeted timber door to the southeast opening to the yard from the rear access route.

Setting

No. 15 is part of the wider College Square development, a formal arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings comprising East, North, and West terraces arranged around a central bowling green, playground, and lawn. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath with a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. Rear yards are typically enclosed by randomly-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed door openings onto a wide rear access route.

The terrace to the east comprises 23 dwellings in similar style but with significant differences in detailing, initially stepped in groups of six respecting the site's subtle relief, terminating at its southeastern end with the village Town Hall (the old Institute building). The northern terrace is the shortest, containing only 12 houses, with distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The former school building is located at the southeastern end of the western terrace.

The central area of the square is divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The northwestern area contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings is located to the southeast, and an open children's playground with three granite monuments is in the centre. The monuments record local mill workers with long service records and commemorate the garden as a playground in memory of James N. Richardson, established in November 1927. One stone is noted as the last cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, recently relocated from the mill grounds, records the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.