5 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

A two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian mill workers' terraced dwelling built around 1874 from local stone to designs by an unknown architect, though possibly by civil engineer John Hardy. The building forms part of a terrace of 18 similar houses comprising the western side of College Square, a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 dwellings in total arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground.

The dwelling is constructed of random-coursed rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite walling with stepped red brick dressings to jambs and painted stone sills. Doors and windows have square-headed gauged-brick openings. The terrace houses are arranged in pairs, each pair symmetrical with doors grouped to the centre and flanked on opposite sides by single windows at ground floor level. The pairs are set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping that rise to rectangular section chimneys at apex level. The line of the verge is continued vertically down each front north-east facade with stepped red brick quoins and recessed downpipes flanking each paired set. Single unpaired dwellings occupy each end of the terrace.

The roof is pitched with fibre cement tiles and roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The north-west rectangular-section red and buff brick chimney has recessed panels of buff brick and a raised corbel course of red and buff brick below a decorative chimney cap with six pots. The eaves feature flush detailing with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course. Metal rain-water goods are fitted to the front (cast iron, recessed into the stepped red brick quoins) and uPVC to the rear, with half-round guttering discharging to circular section downpipes.

The principal north-east facing elevation is near symmetrical with regular fenestration. Ground floor contains a central door with a stepped red brick surround and gauged brick arch with flush keystone detail to its head. Windows to the north-west side of the door have flush red brick detailing beneath the sill. Both ground and first floors have double hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with horns and exposed sash boxes. The painted timber door has three vertical panels to its lower half and six glazed sections to its top, with brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above. A modest concrete front yard with an established shrub at its centre is enclosed by hooped painted metal railings, with a similar foot gate hung on slim posts to the south-east.

The building is attached to No. 4 College Square West to the south-east and to No. 6 College Square West to the north-west. A single-storey pitched-roofed return was added around 1986 to the rear, projecting south-west into an enclosed rear L-shaped yard. The rear elevation consists of painted smooth cement render finish to the return and ground floor, with two timber casement windows at first floor level in the original stone walling (one reduced in height due to the roof apex of the rear return) and a single top opening timber casement window at ground floor level with a galvanized metal shutter. The yard is enclosed by random-coursed rock-faced local stone walling with a painted sheeted timber door providing access from the rear access route.

No. 5 is part of the planned College Square development, which comprises formal terraces on three sides arranged around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road with a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling and hooped metal railings. The terrace to the east comprises 23 similar dwellings (with some differences in detailing), stepped in groups of six respecting the subtle site relief and terminating at its south-eastern end with the village Town Hall. The northern terrace comprises 12 distinctly larger two-storey houses. The former school building is located at the south-east end of the western terrace. The central area contains three sections laid to lawn: a bowling pavilion and green to the north-west with established trees at its boundary, a lawn to the south-east, and an open children's playground in the centre featuring three granite monuments recording the history of Bessbrook and those who served the mill and community.