3 Deramore (Derrymore) Terrace, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 3 Deramore Terrace is a modest two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian end-of-terrace house, built in around 1892 as workers' housing for the nearby Bessbrook Mill. The architect is unknown, though most building work in Bessbrook was carried out by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The house is one of ten similar dwellings in the row, collectively known as Richardson's Terrace, and the listing extends to the house itself, its railings, and its gate.

The building has a rectangular plan facing southwest, constructed of random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate. The same stone was used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. Window and door openings are square-headed with gauged brickwork, and the jambs are dressed with stepped red brick. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. Eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. The northwest chimney stack is of rectangular-section red brick (rebuilt) and carries three terracotta clay pots; the southeast chimney has three buff clay pots. Rainwater goods to the front are generally cast iron with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; uPVC goods have been fitted to the rear.

The principal southwest elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and near-symmetrical in its fenestration. There are two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings. All windows are double-hung, one-over-one sliding timber sash with horns and margin panes. At ground-floor level there is a window to the northwest side of the front door. The front door is a four-panel painted timber door with black iron furniture and a square-headed fanlight above, approached via a path of quarry tiles from the street gate. A modern light fitting has been added above the door. The modest front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by a dwarf stone wall topped with vertical painted metal railings with pointed finials. The foot gate is hung on circular-section cast iron posts to the southeast.

To the northwest, the house is attached to No. 2 Deramore Terrace. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 4 Deramore Terrace. At the rear, where access is limited, the original stone walling survives at first-floor level to the northwest, with a uPVC casement window visible. A two-storey pitched-roof rear return, projecting northeast from the southeast end of the rear elevation, was added in around 1997 to provide a kitchen and bathroom extension. This return is finished in smooth cement render and has a three-part uPVC window at its centre at first-floor level. The rear yard is enclosed in an L-shape and is now covered with a corrugated Perspex roof. The yard's northeast boundary wall has a painted smooth cement render finish, and a painted sheeted timber door to the northwest leads from a shared rear access route into the yard.

The ten houses of Deramore Terrace are each set back from Derrymore Road behind modest front yards enclosed by dwarf stone walls topped with metal railings. To the rear, each dwelling is typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide shared access route running northwest to southeast, accessible from both ends of the terrace. To the northeast of this shared route, each house has a rear garden, many of which have later outbuildings. The rear garden of No. 3 is gravelled with painted sheeted timber fencing to its boundary. Rear facades and rear yard boundary walls across the terrace are now generally much altered. The terrace overlooks parkland associated with Derrymore House to the southwest, where stone walling runs along the roadside among mature trees.

The terrace carries considerable group value as one of ten near-identical houses in the row. Its setting on a prominent position along the main road into Bessbrook also connects it visually and historically to the broader planned village, including the Bessbrook Squares.

The history of the site and of the house is deeply bound up with the development of Bessbrook as a planned model industrial village. The origins of industry in the area date to 1761, when a woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a Mr John Pollock. The location was simply called "The Green" until it was renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth — known as Bess — and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, few buildings had been erected at Bessbrook; the main structures were Mount Caulfield House (the residence of the Nicholson family) and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg and a member of the Religious Society of Friends, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson, in his own words, "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and sought a country district where flax was cultivated and water power was available. His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic approach aimed to bring the poor and unemployed from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook in good conditions, hoping to help them improve their circumstances. The village became known for having none of the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawnshop, and therefore no need for a police presence — a stipulation Richardson enforced by providing recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Charlemont Square East, and distributing milk, tea and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day there is no public house at Bessbrook; police were not stationed there until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863 Richardson became the sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after buying out his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce during this period. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson both the principal employer and the principal landowner at Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house the growing workforce; the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 in 1861 to 2,215 in 1871, with the number of houses rising from 73 to 296. By the turn of the 20th century the population stood at approximately 4,000. Bessbrook is often cited alongside the English model villages of Port Sunlight (begun 1888) and Bournville (begun 1895) as an early example of planned industrial settlement that went on to contribute to town and country planning worldwide.

The Annual Revisions record that nos 1–10 Deramore Terrace were constructed in 1892 and leased to tenants by the Richardson estate. According to a First Survey record from 1969, the terrace was constructed specifically for elderly residents, though census records from around 1901 show that most early tenants were under the age of fifty and remained employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. No. 3 was initially leased to a Mr John Honeyford, recorded in the Census of Ireland as a carpenter aged thirty-two, who lived in a dwelling classified as second class, consisting of five rooms with a shed as its sole outbuilding. The house was valued at £4 in the Annual Revisions.

Ownership of the terrace passed from the Richardson estate in 1900 to the Trustees of the neighbouring Friends Meeting House, with William Davies — a local magistrate and Richardson's land agent — acting as secretary. The terrace was renamed Richardson's Terrace in 1901 to mark this change. The building was first recorded on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906 in its current layout, at that time without the rear return.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to expand through the 20th century, with the mill workers supplying cloth for uniforms during the Second World War. Ownership of Deramore Terrace had reverted to the Bessbrook Spinning Company by the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), during which the rateable value of No. 3 was increased to £7 and ten shillings and a Mr Samuel Hanna was recorded as its occupant. The post-war downturn in the textile market led to most of Bessbrook's housing being sold to private individuals and companies from the 1960s onwards. The mill itself closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army. Deramore Terrace was listed in 1985. Around 1997 No. 3 underwent an extensive renovation, including the addition of its current two-storey rendered rear return providing a kitchen and bathroom extension.

The house retains its external character and original front boundaries. Despite the later two-storey rendered rear extension and Perspex-covered yard to the rear — which detract somewhat from the overall integrity of the building — the principal elevation, walling, roof materials, windows, and front enclosure remain largely intact, giving the property strong architectural and historic significance as part of one of Ireland's earliest and most influential planned industrial settlements.