3 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

3 College Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay, late-Victorian mid-terrace house built around 1883, forming part of College Square in the model village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The house is listed in its own right and as part of a group, and sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983.

The building is L-plan in form, facing southwest, with a two-storey rear return. Walls are of random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate, also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool), with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The pitched roof is now clad in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles, replacing the original natural slate. A rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest carries four terracotta clay pots. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods are uPVC throughout, comprising half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is near-symmetrical, sitting flush with the rest of the terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by a dwarf modern block wall topped by replacement painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a six-panelled painted timber door at the southeast end of the facade, fitted with brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above. A window sits to the northwest side of the elevation. The first floor follows the same fenestration pattern, with two windows aligned above the ground floor openings. Windows throughout are uPVC casements, replacing the originals.

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 4 College Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 2 College Square East. Access to the northeast rear elevation is limited, but where visible it shows a two-storey hipped-roof rear return projecting into an L-shaped concrete rear yard. The northwest side of the rear return is now covered by a monopitched corrugated Perspex roof. The rear yard is a single, reduced bay in width at its northwest extent. There is a single top-opening casement window at first floor level on the rear elevation, and a three-part side-opening casement window at first floor level on the northwest face of the rear return. Walling to the rear facade and return is generally roughcast cement render. A flat-roofed outbuilding occupies the northern corner of the yard. The rear yard boundary is of random-coursed rubble stone walling with a painted timber door leading onto the wide rear access route.

No. 3 is one of twenty-three similar houses forming the eastern terrace of College Square, which together with the Bessbrook Town Hall (the former Institute building) to the southeast make up the eastern side of the square. College Square as a whole consists of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged along the north, west and eastern sides of a central green — a formally planned late-Victorian square, a rare arrangement in the province. The eastern terrace is stepped in groups of six dwellings to respect the subtle relief of the site; the western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. The northern terrace, the shortest at twelve houses wide, is distinctly larger, being two-and-a-half storeys. The central area of the square is now divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. To the northwest is a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its northwest boundary; the bowling green was added in 1911. To the southeast is a lawn also enclosed by hooped metal railings, and in the centre of the square is an open children's playground containing three granite monuments. One monument records: "erected A.D. 1911 in respectful memory of George Wright, Head Mason. John McClelland, Head Millwright. Michael Boyle, Flax Buyer. Who each faithfully served the Bessbrook firm for nearly 50 years. Also Robert Ross, Mill Manager. Austin Kennedy, Rougher." A second records: "The garden in memory of James N. Richardson is arranged by his wife as a playground for the children of Bessbrook whom he loved November 1927," with an inscription on the opposite side noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, recently moved to the square from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878. Each house in the square is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath by a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings.

College Square was laid out around 1883 in response to the expansion of the Bessbrook Spinning Company and the resulting growth in the local workforce. The village of Bessbrook itself 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 (Quakers), purchased a derelict mill at the site and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson's 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. Bessbrook was conceived as a model village and social experiment: Richardson aimed to provide good living and working conditions for his employees in a country district, hoping to improve relations between employers and workforce and to encourage self-improvement among those he brought from the surrounding countryside. The village became known as a settlement without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police — with Richardson providing recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributions of milk, tea and cocoa to mill workers. The majority of residents voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and Bessbrook still has no public house today. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

The earlier Charlemont Square, to the west of College Square, was laid out between 1862 and 1866 following a boom in the local linen industry during the American Civil War (1861–65) and the purchase of the remainder of the Camlough Estate from Lord Charlemont by Richardson in 1865. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215 and the number of houses from 73 to 296. College Square followed in around 1883 during a period of intense building activity in the village; Richardson's factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, using Newry Granodiorite from the local quarry.

Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement stipulating, among other things, that fowl and pigs were not to be kept in the family quarters or yard (though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden), and that children must be sent to school until old enough for mill work.

No. 3 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John Barnhill and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings, at which it remained until the 1950s. The occupancy of the house changed frequently over subsequent decades. By the 1911 Census of Ireland the house was occupied by a Mr James Brady, whose family worked at Richardson's factory; the building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the building remained valued at £5 and 10 shillings and was occupied by a Ms Sarah Johnston. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the College Square housing until the 1960s, when dwellings began to be sold to private individuals — the majority of houses along the square were purchased by a Mr George Preston around 1969. The sale of property at Bessbrook was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972 (the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army). No. 3 College Square East was purchased outright by George Preston in 1968, though the Johnston family remained in residence through to the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the total rateable value had risen to £8.

The building was listed in 1981 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area on its designation in 1983. A renovation took place in 1982, which included replacement of the entrance door. The two-storey rear return is also a later addition, though its date of construction is not recorded. The original natural slate roof, front railings, windows and rainwater goods have all been replaced, which detracts from the building's authenticity, though the external character of the Newry Granodiorite facade is otherwise well preserved.

Bessbrook is internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, begun in the 1840s and broadly contemporary with — and considered to have influenced — the English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning worldwide.