14 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

A two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866 to designs by an unknown architect. The building has an L-plan form facing southwest, with a single-bay two-storey rear return. It is one of twenty-seven similar houses forming the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square, a formally designed mid-Victorian square containing 66 buildings in total arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The square was built to house mill workers.

The walling is generally random-coursed rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite with red brick dressings. Stone cills are painted, and stepped red brick surrounds in gauged brick with cambered heads frame the doorway and window openings, though many doorway and window heads are now squared off with bands of smooth cement render to the surrounds. The pitched roof is covered with fibre cement tiles and has angled black clay ridge tiles. A rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest has two pots, one buff clay and one terracotta. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Metal rainwater goods with half-round guttering discharge to circular-section downpipes.

The principal front elevation faces southwest and is nearly symmetrical, flush with the main terrace and narrowly set back from the larger shop buildings at the southeastern end. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by hooped metal railings with a painted metal foot gate to the southeast. A paved path from the gate leads to a modern varnished timber plank door positioned to the southeast of the facade. The door has one rectangular leaded glass panel to the top centre with a square-headed fanlight above. The facade displays a regular fenestration pattern with two windows at first-floor level aligned with ground-floor openings. These are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

The building is attached to No. 15 Charlemont Square East on the northwest elevation and to No. 13 Charlemont Square East on the southeast elevation. The northeast elevation contains a two-storey pitched-roof rear return at the southeast end projecting northeast to the site boundary. The narrow rear yard, single reduced bay in width, is accessed through a painted timber plank door from the rear access route. The rear elevation has smooth rendered finish with concrete cills and top-opening timber casement windows to the first floor. The rear return features uPVC soffit, fascia and bargeboard with uPVC box guttering discharging to square-section uPVC downpipes, and uPVC windows to the gable end with narrow concrete cills.

The setting forms part of Charlemont Square's planned arrangement of mill workers' dwellings and shops. The formal square comprises East, North and West terraces arranged around a central green. 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 East and West terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings to respect the subtle site relief. Each dwelling generally has a larger rear yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Front facades are nearly uniform along the East and West terraces, though rear facades are much altered with various extensions of different shapes and sizes. The central area of the square is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanized metal railings with established trees at its boundary. A children's playground is located to the southeast and includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911. Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.