17 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

17 College Square West, Bessbrook

A two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian mill workers' terraced dwelling built around 1874 of local stone, possibly designed by civil engineer John Hardy, though the architect remains uncertain. The building forms part of a planned terrace of 18 similar houses that comprises the western side of College Square, a formally designed late-Victorian square containing 53 dwellings in total arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground.

The house has a rectangular plan form facing northeast with a single-storey rear return. It is constructed of random-coursed rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite walling with stepped red brick dressings to jambs and window surrounds. Stone cills and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings are characteristic of the terrace.

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

The principal northeast elevation faces onto College Square and is flush with the rest of the terrace. It is nearly symmetrical with regular fenestration: two windows to first floor level aligned with ground floor openings. All windows are top-opening uPVC casements. The ground floor has a stepped red brick surround and gauged brick arches with flush keystone detail to the door head; the window to the northwest side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath its cill. The pitched roof is covered with fibre cement tiles and topped with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The northwest-facing chimney has been rebuilt in rustic red brick with six terracotta clay pots. Flush eaves feature a double red brick course, a single buff brick course and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above.

The front garden is modest in size, laid to lawn and enclosed by dwarf red brick walling topped with hooped painted metal railings. A similar foot gate hung on slim posts provides access. A paved path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door with two glazed panels to its upper half and a square-headed fanlight above.

The northwest side of the building is attached to No. 18 College Square West, and the southeast side is attached to No. 16 College Square West.

The rear elevation faces southwest and consists of original stone walling with two top-opening uPVC casement windows to the first floor and a rendered and painted single-storey flat-roofed return which projects southwest the full width of the elevation into the enclosed rear yard. The yard boundary wall to the southwest is of random-coursed rock-faced local stone with a painted sheeted timber door leading to the rear access route. An outbuilding with a monopitched corrugated metal roof stands at the north corner of the yard. The rear return has two roof lights and a painted flush timber door with glazed top half to the southeast end opening into the rear yard, and a two-part uPVC casement window to the northwest side of the door.

Cast iron rainwater goods serve the front elevation with uPVC to the rear; half-round guttering discharges to circular section downpipes. The downpipe to the front northeast is recessed into the walling of stepped red brick quoins.

No. 17 forms part of the wider College Square development, a planned arrangement of mill workers' dwellings comprising a formal square with 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. The terrace to the east comprises 23 dwellings built in similar style but with some significant differences in detailing, stepped in groups of six respecting the subtle relief of the site and terminating at the southeastern end with the village Town Hall. The northern terrace is the shortest, being only 12 houses wide, though the dwellings are 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 laid to lawn, with a bowling pavilion and green to the northwest enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, a lawn enclosed by hooped railings to the southeast, and an open children's playground in the centre featuring granite monuments commemorating local figures and the mill's history.