18 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

18 College Square East, Bessbrook

A two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian terraced house built around 1883, possibly designed by civil engineer John Hardy. The building faces southwest and has an L-shaped plan, with a two-storey pitched roof rear return added around 1986 and a covered rear yard to the northeast.

The house is constructed of random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite walling with stepped red brick dressings. It features painted stone cills and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The pitched roof is covered with fibre cement tiles and topped with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The flush eaves have separate red and buff brick courses with an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. The replacement chimney to the northwest has two black clay pots. The rainwater goods are generally uPVC with uPVC half-round guttering at the front and half-octagonal guttering at the rear, discharging through cast iron and square-section downpipes respectively.

The front elevation facing southwest is nearly symmetrical and flush with the terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by replacement hooped galvanised metal railings with a matching foot gate. A concrete path leads from the gate to an eight-panelled painted timber door at the southeast end of the facade, which has black iron furniture and a square-headed fanlight above. The facade has regular fenestration: two windows on the first floor in line with the main entrance and one window on the ground floor. The front has timber casement windows (top-opening), whilst rear windows are generally uPVC casements.

The northeast elevation features the two-storey pitched roof return, enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone boundary walling forming an L-shaped rear yard. This yard is now covered with a monopitched corrugated Perspex and sheet metal roof and is accessed through a painted sheet metal door from the rear access route. The rear elevation has a rough cast cement rendered finish with concrete cills and uPVC casement windows.

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 19 College Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 17 College Square East.

No. 18 is part of College Square, a formally planned arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings comprising three terraces (East, North and West) arranged around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. Each house is set back from the public road with a modest front yard. The eastern terrace, of which this building forms part, is stepped in groups of six dwellings to respect the site's subtle relief. The nearby Bessbrook Town Hall (the old Institute building) is located to the southeast. The central area includes a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, a lawn enclosed by hooped railings, and a children's playground containing three granite monuments commemorating long-serving workers and local benefactors, with inscriptions dating from 1911 and 1927, and recording the mill's history from 1760 onwards.