10 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 10 College Square West is a two-storey, two-bay terraced mill workers' dwelling built in approximately 1874 from locally quarried Newry Granodiorite stone. It forms part of a row of 18 similar houses making up the western terrace of College Square, a formally planned late-Victorian square comprising 53 dwellings in total, arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground, with principal access from Fountain Street to the southeast. The architect is unknown, though the work is possibly attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881, who was also responsible for extending the mill. The house, together with its gate, railings and boundary walling, is listed, and forms part of the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983.

The building is rectangular in plan, facing northeast, with a single-storey rear return. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite with stepped red brick dressings to jambs, painted stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. Dwellings along the terrace are grouped in symmetrical pairs, each pair having its doors grouped to the centre flanked on opposite sides by single windows at ground-floor level, set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping, which rise to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. The line of each verge continues vertically down the front northeast facade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The replacement rectangular-section red brick chimney to the southeast carries terracotta pots. The eaves are flush, with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above — though this decorative eaves course to the front facade is now largely masked by modern electrical wiring. Metal rainwater goods are used to the front northeast elevation and uPVC to the rear southwest; half-round guttering discharges to circular-section downpipes, with the front downpipe recessed into the stepped red brick quoins.

The front northeast elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near-symmetrical with a regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings, all windows being three-part top-and-side-opening timber casements. The ground-floor door has a stepped red brick surround and a gauged brick arch with flush keystone detail to the head; the window to the southeast side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath its cill. The entrance door is a six-panelled painted timber door with a semi-circular glazed section to its top half containing two radial glazing bars, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. A modest front garden laid to lawn is enclosed by hooped painted metal railings with a similar foot gate hung on slim posts to the northwest, and a paved path leading from gate to door. The windows to the front facade were replaced in approximately 2006.

The rear southwest elevation faces into an enclosed yard. Yard boundary walling is of random-coursed rock-faced stone with a painted sheeted timber door leading from the rear access route to a concrete yard. Two original small red brick openings along the top half of the boundary wall are now blocked with cement. At first-floor level the rear elevation retains original stone walling, while ground-floor walling and the rear return are finished in pebble dash render; the internal face of the yard boundary walling is finished in painted smooth cement render. There are two equally spaced top-opening timber casement windows with stone cills at first-floor level and a top-opening casement window at ground-floor level. A single-storey flat-roofed rear return projects into the rear yard at the southeast, with a three-part timber casement window to its southwest end; the northwest side of the rear return has a painted timber door with margin panes to its glazed top half and a timber casement window to the northeast of the door. To the southeast the building is attached to No. 9 College Square West, and to the northwest to No. 11 College Square West.

The building retains much of its original plan form and, unlike many of its neighbours along the terrace, retains some original detailing to the rear facade at first-floor level as well as some original internal joinery, though modern finishes elsewhere detract somewhat from its character. Numerous television aerials also detract from the setting of the square as a whole.

College Square was laid out in stages between approximately 1874 and approximately 1890 as part of the ongoing expansion of Bessbrook village and its linen industry. The central area of the square is now divided into three sections laid to lawn: a bowling pavilion and bowling green to the northwest enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its northwest boundary; a lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings to the southeast; and an open children's playground in the centre 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 to the opposite side recording that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently moved to its current location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd. in 1878.

The eastern terrace of the square comprises 23 dwellings built in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing; they are stepped in groups of six to respect the subtle relief of the site and terminate at their southeastern end with the village Town Hall, the former Institute building. The northern terrace is the shortest in the square, comprising only 12 houses; although similar in style to the other terrace dwellings, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The former school building is located to the southeast end of the western terrace.

Bessbrook was founded as a model village in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill at the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson stated that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose the location for its water power, agricultural surroundings, and local flax cultivation. The village layout was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson established Bessbrook as a social experiment, bringing workers from the surrounding countryside and providing them with good living and working conditions in the expectation of improving relations between employers and employed. The village became well known as a settlement without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and consequently no need for police — with Richardson instead providing recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and the distribution of 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 no public house exists at Bessbrook; police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863 Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The linen industry experienced a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65) when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson used this opportunity to greatly enlarge the factory and increase his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate new workers; 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 stages between approximately 1874 and approximately 1890. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The houses along College Square West were specifically constructed between approximately 1874 and approximately 1877: annual revisions first recorded nos. 1–12 College Square West in 1874, with nos. 13–18 added by 1877.

The houses were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite was of high quality and was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool. Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Spinning Company and possessed between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing clauses regarding the keeping of fowl and pigs — permitted in a garden pig-sty or fowl-run but not in the family quarters or yard — and were also obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 10 College Square West was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. William Laughlin, who also occupied the adjoining No. 9, and was valued at £6. Occupancy changed frequently over subsequent decades. During the 1911 Census of Ireland the house was occupied by Robert Fisher, a linen yarn dresser employed at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of six inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) it was valued at £7 and 10 shillings and occupied by a Mr. Thomas Morton. In approximately 1961 the house was occupied by a Mr. William Bradley, who purchased it outright in approximately 1968. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value had risen to £10.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the College Square houses until the 1960s, when a post-war downturn in the textile market led to the sale of the properties to private individuals and firms. The mill closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army. No. 10 College Square West was listed in 1981. The Bessbrook Conservation Area was designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village. The Conservation Area Guide notes that the carefully planned development of Bessbrook, including the uniform terraces at Charlemont Square and College Square, influenced the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), which have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. College Square, together with the earlier Charlemont Square (1862–66) to its west, could be considered of international importance as part of one of the earliest planned mill villages in these islands.