4 Lakeview, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

4 Lakeview, Bessbrook

A two-and-a-half-storey, three-bay semi-detached dwelling built between 1861 and 1866 to designs by an unknown architect. The house is constructed of local Newry Granodiorite stone with painted lined render walling and granite dressings. It forms the second pair of similar dwellings known collectively as Lakeview, attached to the similar No. 3 Lakeview to the northeast.

The rectangular plan building faces southeast towards Bessbrook Lake, a former mill pond associated with Bessbrook Mill. A single-storey back porch is attached to the rear, with an enclosed yard beyond.

The pitched natural slate roof is topped with roll-top black clay ridge tiles and has three equally spaced attic half-dormers to the front. Rectangular section painted smooth render chimneys rise to the gables, each carrying nine buff clay pots. The chimney to the northeast is shared with No. 3. Flush eaves are finished with a dressed granite eaves course. Metal rainwater goods feature ogee guttering discharging to circular section downpipes.

The principal front elevation is near-symmetrical and consists of a three-bay block with three half-dormers to the roof. A single-storey hipped roof porch projects from the centre bay, with a four-panel painted timber door to its northeast wall, brass furniture, and a single granite step leading to a paved area. The ground floor features a canted bay window to the southwest with a continuous cill course and 1/1 timber sash windows to each side. At first-floor level, similar 1/1 sash windows sit beneath a continuous stone cill course. The attic half-dormer windows are reduced height with plain painted timber bargeboards. Generally, square-headed window openings throughout contain 2/2 sliding timber sash windows with horns. Walling displays raised granite quoins and a dressed granite plinth course.

The southwest elevation is two-and-a-half storeys, finished in painted smooth render with quoins (some rendered) and raised granite verges to the gable and chimney at the apex. Two glazed painted timber patio doors with multiple glazed sections and semi-circular splayed fanlights open onto a paved patio area, raised above garden level and enclosed by red brick walling with a stone-built plinth and sawtooth corbel course. String courses in painted render to the first-floor and attic levels align with the cill lines of the front elevation.

A high stone-built yard boundary wall extends to the northwest of the dwelling, pitched slate coping and a raised segmental arched door opening onto three stone steps with a painted sheeted timber door, leading to an enclosed rear yard with no public access. A monopitched roof outbuilding is attached to the northeast side of this boundary wall within the yard, featuring a glazed triangular arched window.

A flight of granite steps at the southeast of the patio descends to the lower garden, with decorative polychrome brickwork featuring blind diamond detailing to the northwest side. The garden runs northwest-southeast from the southeast site boundary near Bessbrook Lake to painted sheeted timber vehicular gates with pedestrian door, opening onto Church Road at the northwest boundary. The gate pillars are square-section red and buff brick with blind lancets and dentilated corbel courses to the red brick caps, detailing similar to the adjacent foot gate of the former Rent Office.

A new stone-built garage stands to the northwest of the dwelling with a painted sheeted timber door. The lower garden is set to lawn with a gravel path, mature shrubs and trees, and stone-built walling to the southeast and southwest boundaries.

The rear northwest elevation (of limited visibility) is symmetrical, two-and-a-half storeys, constructed of random-coursed rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite stone with stepped red brick dressings to jambs and square-headed gauged-brick window openings. A tall semi-circular headed window opening with y-tracery is visible at the centre of the first-floor level. Four skylights light the attic level. A single-storey, single-bay hipped roof back porch projects from the centre into the enclosed rear yard, which backs onto outbuildings belonging to the former estate Rent Office, also known as The Garage.

The dwelling is accessed via a gravelled road running southwest from Prospect Place to the northeast, between painted metal vehicular gates of vertical irons with pointed ball finials, hung on slim dressed granite pillars with pyramidal caps and flanked by similar foot gates and railings with spearhead finials. The house is situated as part of Lakeview, a collective name for two pairs of semi-detached dwellings, with the earlier two-storey No. 1 and No. 2 showing similar style but with significant differences in detailing.