7 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

7 College Square West is a two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian mill workers' terraced dwelling built around 1874 in local stone. The architect is unknown, though it may have been designed by civil engineer John Hardy. The building forms part of a significant planned development: a terrace of 18 similar houses that makes up the western side of College Square, a formally designed late-Victorian square containing 53 dwellings in total arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground.

The building is constructed of random-coursed rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite with stepped red brick dressings to jambs. It has stone cills and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. Dwellings are grouped in symmetrical pairs along the terrace, each pair having doors grouped to the centre and flanked by single windows at ground floor level. These are set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping that rise to rectangular section chimneys at apex level. The verge line continues vertically down each front north-east facade with stepped red brick quoins and recessed downpipes. Single dwellings at each end of the terrace are unpaired.

The roof is pitched with fibre cement tiles and roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The rectangular-section red and buff brick chimney to the north-west has recessed panels of buff brick and a raised corbel course of red and buff brick below a decorative chimney cap with terracotta clay pots. Flush eaves feature a double red brick course, a single buff brick course and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Metal rainwater goods run across the front elevation with uPVC to the rear; half-round guttering discharges to circular section downpipes.

The principal front elevation faces north-east and is near-symmetrical. Two windows at first floor level align with ground floor openings, all being double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with horns and exposed sash boxes. The ground floor has a stepped red brick surround and gauged brick arches with flush keystone detail to the door head; the window to the north-west side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath its cill. A modest front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped painted metal railings, with a similar foot gate hung on slim posts. A paved path from the gate leads to a panelled painted timber door with two glazed panels to its upper half, brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above.

The south-west rear elevation consists of a single-storey L-plan flat-roofed return added around 1980, extending along the north-western side of the yard to a stone boundary wall. A monopitched corrugated perspex roof covers the remainder of the yard to the south-east. The boundary wall is of random-coursed rock-faced local stone with a painted sheeted timber door leading to the covered concrete yard. The rear return and ground floor of the elevation have a painted smooth cement render finish. Two three-part timber casement windows with stone cills are visible at first floor level in the original stone walling, and a timber casement window with a slim concrete cill faces into the covered yard at ground floor level. The south-east side of the rear return has a flush painted timber door opening into the covered yard with a glazed top half, square-headed fanlight above and a top-opening timber casement window to the south-west side of the door.

To the north-west the building is attached to No. 8 College Square West, and to the south-east to No. 6 College Square West.

The setting forms part of the planned College Square, a formal arrangement of mill workers' dwellings comprising east, north and west terraces arranged around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath with a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The terrace to the east comprises 23 dwellings of similar style with some significant detailing differences, initially stepped in groups of six to respect the site's subtle relief and terminating at its south-eastern end with the village Town Hall. The northern terrace is the shortest, containing only 12 houses, though they are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The former school building is located at the south-east end of the western terrace. The central area of the square is now divided into three sections laid to lawn: an area to the north-west contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its north-west boundary; a lawn enclosed by similar railings is located to the south-east; and an open children's playground with three granite monuments occupies the centre. One monument records those who faithfully served the Bessbrook firm for nearly 50 years. Another records a garden in memory of James N. Richardson, arranged as a playground for Bessbrook children, noting it was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, recently moved from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill, details the mill's history from the Pollock family ownership in 1760 to Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.