5 College Square North, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

A two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian mill workers terraced dwelling at 5 College Square North in Bessbrook, County Armagh. Built around 1890 in local stone to designs by an unknown architect, though possibly by civil engineer John Hardy. The building follows an L-plan form facing southeast with a single-storey rear return.

The dwelling is constructed of random-coursed rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite walling with stepped red brick dressings to jambs and stone cills. Door and window openings are square-headed and finished in gauged brick. The pitched roof is covered with fibre cement tiles and features roll-top black clay ridge tiles. Two rectangular-section red brick chimneys—one to the southwest and one to the northeast—each carry clay pots (three buff and one terracotta on the southwest stack). The eaves are flush with separate red and buff brick courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. The building retains one cast iron downpipe to the centre of the southeast elevation; other rainwater goods are uPVC with half-round guttering discharging to circular section downpipes.

The principal southeast-facing front elevation is flush with the terrace and displays near-symmetrical fenestration with two windows at first-floor level aligned above two ground-floor openings. All windows are top-opening timber casements. The ground floor features a panelled painted timber door with two glazed upper panels and a square-headed fanlight above, with a window to the southwest side of the door. A modest tarmaced front yard is enclosed by red brick dwarf walling topped with hooped painted metal railings and a similar foot gate.

The southwest elevation is attached to No. 4 College Square North. The northwest elevation (with limited access) shows original stone walling and a single timber casement window at first-floor level. Ground floor has a boarded-up top-opening casement window to the southwest and a single-storey return at the northeast projecting into an enclosed rear yard. The rear return features a flat felt-covered roof, a painted timber two-part glazed back door with a timber casement window to its left (now boarded up), and a monopitched corrugated Perspex roof covering part of the adjacent yard. Ground floor and rear return are finished with painted smooth render. Yard boundary walling is random-coursed rock-faced stone with a painted sheeted timber door. The northeast elevation is attached to No. 6 College Square North.

The building forms part of College Square, a formally designed late-Victorian square containing 53 dwellings in total arranged on three sides around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. The northern terrace comprises twelve similar but distinctly larger two-storey houses with steeply pitched roofs, set back from the perimeter public road and footpath with modest front yards. The square is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The central area is now divided into three sections: the northwest section contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees; a lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings lies to the southeast; and an open children's playground with granite monuments occupies the centre. The monuments commemorate local figures and the history of Bessbrook Mill, with inscriptions recording names of those who served the Bessbrook firm for nearly fifty years, a garden created in 1927, and the mill's ownership history from 1760 onwards.