3 Wakefield Terrace, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

Three Wakefield Terrace is a two-storey, two-bay terraced house in Bessbrook, built around 1865 to designs by an unknown architect. It was substantially altered and extended around 1926, when a two-storey rear return was added and the front facade was gentrified. The house forms part of a terrace of six similar dwellings located at the south-west end of Fountain Street and south-east of Church Road, at the south-east end of Charlemont Square.

The building is constructed of painted lined cement render with square-headed door and window openings and painted stone cills. The pitched roof is covered with fibre cement tiles with angled black clay ridge tiles. The rear return, added around 1926, has a pitched natural slate roof with roll top terracotta ridge tiles, with a valley between the front block and rear return. Two rectangular-section red brick chimneys are present: the south-east example has a single terracotta clay pot, whilst the north-west chimney, rebuilt in rustic brick, has two terracotta clay pots. The rear return has two similar chimneys with single buff clay pots. The building features flush eaves with painted timber facia, metal rain-water goods and half-round guttering discharging to uPVC circular section downpipe at front and a square-section cast iron downpipe with decorative trefoil brackets to the rear.

The principal elevation faces north-east and is flush with the rest of the terrace. A gabled window is positioned in-line above the ground-floor window to the north-west side of the door. All windows are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sashes with horns and reduced height top sashes. The door surround is painted with plain rectangular-section pilasters and a moulded entablature. The door itself is painted timber with a glazed top half, a square-headed fanlight and two granite steps onto the public footpath. The ground floor has a window to the north-west side of the door.

To the south-east, the building is attached to No. 2 Wakefield Terrace. The south-west elevation facing the rear yard consists of the two-storey pitched roof rear return added around 1926. This elevation has a lined cement render finish with a single sash window to the centre of the first floor and two similarly sized top-opening casement windows to the ground floor, all with stone cills. A door to the south-east side of the ground-floor windows opens onto the concrete yard and is painted timber with glazed top and bottom halves. A modern block outbuilding with corrugated metal roof and stone-built south-west wall stands in the rear yard. To the north-west, the building is attached to No. 4 Wakefield Terrace.

The terrace occupies a gently sloping site at the south-east end of Charlemont Square. Numbers 1 to 5 face north-east towards Fountain Street and are fronted by the public footpath, with Numbers 2 to 5 sharing a continuous ridge line. Number 6 faces north-west onto Church Road and is narrowly set back from the public footpath. Rear yards are open to neighbouring dwellings and are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling to the south-west. Adjacent to No. 1 Wakefield Terrace, a section of the original yard walling facing south-east is rendered with a tall pier capped with concrete. The village fountain, from which Fountain Street takes its name, is located to the north-east of No. 1. It is square-plan, built in granite ashlar with cast iron spouts to each side and a finial to the top, surrounded by a rectangular area enclosed by dwarf granite walling topped with painted metal railings, with a stone trough remaining.