20 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, Co. Armagh, BT35 7AF

20 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian mid-terrace house, built around 1862 to designs by an unknown architect. It forms one of twenty-six houses making up the western terrace of Charlemont Square — a formally planned mid-Victorian square of 66 buildings in total, arranged on three sides around a central green and primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The house sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983.

Architectural Description

The building is L-plan in form, facing northeast, with a large two-storey rear return added around 1988. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a granodiorite granite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate), with red brick dressings. Window and door openings are square-headed with replacement concrete cills and modern red brick surrounds, likely altered during renovation works carried out between 1990 and 1992. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a replacement rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest with a single terracotta clay pot. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater goods consist of uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The front elevation is near-symmetrical. A modest concrete front yard is enclosed by replacement smooth cement-rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade, which has two glazed panels to its top half, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a window opening to the northwest side at ground floor level. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern, with two windows at first floor level aligned with the ground floor openings; these have top-opening timber casement windows.

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 21 Charlemont Square West, and to the southeast it is attached to No. 19 Charlemont Square West. Access to the southwest-facing elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of a single-bay two-storey pitched-roof rear return projecting to the rear boundary, with a casement window to first floor level only on the southwest facade. A sheeted painted timber half door, set within smooth cement-rendered walling, leads from the rear access route into the yard, which is one reduced bay in width to the northwest of the rear return. A single top-opening timber casement window is visible at first floor level. The rear return has a painted timber fascia and soffit, with a generally painted smooth cement-rendered finish, uPVC rainwater goods, and top-opening timber casement windows with concrete cills. The rear facade as a whole is much altered.

Materials summary: walling in Newry Granodiorite; roof in fibre cement; rainwater goods in uPVC; windows are timber casements.

Setting

No. 20 forms part of Charlemont Square West, itself part of a planned arrangement of 66 mill workers' dwellings and shops forming a formal square with east, north, and west terraces arranged around a central green. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings, respecting the subtle relief of the site. Rear yards are generally enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route, and rear facades are much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes.

Front facades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West have traditional shopfronts at ground floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at only eight houses in width, though these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central area of the square is now laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at its boundary. A children's playground is located to the southeast, including a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911, and Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.

Historical Context

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates to 1761 when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a John Pollock. The site was then known simply as "The Green" but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, very few buildings had been erected there — the only significant structures were Mount Caulfield House (the residence of the Nicholson family) and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later recorded that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose the Bessbrook location specifically for its water power, surrounding agricultural population, and the local cultivation of flax. Bessbrook was developed as a model village in phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and his layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's approach combined philanthropic and pragmatic aims: by providing good living standards for his workers he sought to foster positive relations between employer and employed, and he brought poor, unqualified, and destitute people from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook in the hope of improving their circumstances.

Bessbrook is often referred to as a village without the "Three Ps" — there was no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In place of a public house, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve these conditions in the 1870s, and to this day there remains no public house at Bessbrook. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863, Richardson became the sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after purchasing his brother's shares. The local linen industry experienced a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65) when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took the opportunity to greatly enlarge his factory and workforce. In 1865, Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson, making him both the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of 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.

The architect of the houses in Charlemont Square is not known with certainty. C. E. B. Brett has suggested that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work at Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite from a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate — a granite of sufficiently high quality that it was also used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool.

The square was not depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had begun by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year noted that Charlemont Square West — referred to as "new row" — was the only side of the square to have been completed, though all 26 buildings along it remained unoccupied at the time. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866, according to the Annual Revisions.

Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing specific clauses: they were not to keep fowl or pigs within the family quarters or yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden. A further binding clause obliged tenants to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work. Each house had a garden or yard containing an eighth of an acre.

No. 20 Charlemont Square West was constructed around 1862. The Annual Revisions record that it was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mrs. Horner and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed with frequency over the following decades, though the valuation remained unchanged until the 1950s. The building was depicted on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Bessbrook of 1906 in its current layout. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by Patrick Kearney, employed as a common carrier at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), No. 20 was occupied by the Bradley family, who remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining the Bessbrook Spinning Company international recognition. During the Second World War, mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold to private individuals and companies. The majority of the houses along the square were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. The sale of property at Bessbrook was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 20 Charlemont Square West was purchased outright by Clifford Bradley in 1969 and was revalued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72).

The house was listed in 1981 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983, in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct form and character. The Conservation Area Guide notes that the carefully planned development of Bessbrook — including the uniform terraces at Charlemont Square and College Square — influenced the design of the 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. Bessbrook is therefore internationally significant as an early planned mill village, begun in the 1840s and contemporary with, or predating, these better-known English examples.

The two-storey rear return was added around 1988. An extensive renovation carried out between 1990 and 1992 included the removal of rendering and restoration of the stone facade, re-slating of the roof with man-made slates, installation of new sliding sash window frames, and the addition of new railings to the front of the house. At the time of the most recent survey the building continued to be used as a private dwelling.