15 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

15 Charlemont Square West is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian mid-terrace house, built in around 1862 to designs by an unknown architect. It forms part of the western terrace of Charlemont Square, Bessbrook, County Armagh, and is listed along with its yard walling.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is of L-plan form, facing northeast, with a large two-storey flat-roofed rear return. It is constructed in Newry Granodiorite — a locally quarried granite also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool — with brick surrounds to the openings. The front elevation is near-symmetrical and flush with the main terrace line. It has been given a pebbledash render over the original stonework, with painted smooth cement render surrounds and painted stone sills to the square-headed door and window openings. The rear southwest elevation has a painted smooth render finish throughout with painted concrete sills.

All windows have been replaced with uPVC top- or side-opening casements. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. A single rectangular-section red brick chimney — now rendered — rises from the northwest end and carries one terracotta clay pot. The eaves are flush, with a smooth rendered corbel course beneath. Rainwater goods to the front are metal; those to the rear are uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The front yard is modest in size, gravelled, and enclosed by painted smooth rendered dwarf walling topped by replacement hollow metal tube railings with some scrollwork. A similar foot gate on slim posts to the southeast gives onto a concrete path leading to a planked uPVC door positioned to the southeast of the facade. The upper half of the door has a single glazed square opening with bevelled glass in a three-petal flower design. There is a window opening to the northwest at ground-floor level. At first-floor level, two windows align with the ground-floor openings and are fitted with top-opening uPVC casements.

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 16 Charlemont Square West. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 14 Charlemont Square West.

The rear southwest elevation consists of a two-bay, two-storey flat-roofed rear return projecting into an L-shaped concrete yard. The main rear facade has a single reduced bay to the northwest end, with one uPVC top-opening casement window at both ground- and first-floor levels facing southwest. The return has a felt-covered roof and a two-part uPVC casement window at ground-floor level facing southwest, with two separate top-opening casement windows above at first-floor level. A sheeted painted timber door leads from a rear access route into the narrow L-shaped yard. On the northwest side of the rear return there is a panelled uPVC door with a glazed upper half, and a separate ground-floor window to its left. A monopitched boiler house with clear corrugated Perspex roofing abuts the southeast boundary wall and the south corner of the rear return. Yard boundary walling has a painted smooth render finish; the rear access boundary wall to the southwest has a painted precast concrete capping. The rear return has a single top-opening casement window at first-floor level on its southeast side.

SETTING AND GROUP VALUE

No. 15 forms part of Charlemont Square, a formally planned mid-Victorian square comprising 66 buildings in total arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The western and eastern terraces each contain 26 houses, stepped in groups of two dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. The northern terrace is the shortest at eight houses, though those buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. Five larger buildings at the southeast end of Charlemont Square East and one at the southeast end of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above.

Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. Rear yards are generally larger and enclosed by random coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades across the square are much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes; front facades along the east and west terraces are nearly uniform in character.

The central green is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees along its boundary. A children's playground is located to the southeast and includes a monument commemorating the installation of electric lighting in 1911. Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally positioned to the southeast of the playground.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates from 1761, when a John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on a site then known simply as "The Green." The settlement was renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth — known as Bess — and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, when the first edition Ordnance Survey map was produced, few buildings had been erected: the principal structures were Mount Caulfield House 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 and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began constructing housing for his factory workers. In his own words, Richardson "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose the Bessbrook site for its water power, surrounding rural population, and local flax cultivation. His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic approach led him to provide work and housing for the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside, hoping to help them improve their circumstances. The village was established as a social experiment in which workers could live and work in contentment.

Bessbrook became widely known as a village without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In lieu of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops at Nos 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his mill workers. The strategy proved effective: the majority of the population voted to maintain the prohibition in the 1870s, and no public house has existed at Bessbrook to this day. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863, following the purchase of his brother's shares, Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The local linen industry experienced a significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took advantage of this by greatly expanding his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson by the mid-1860s both the principal employer and the main landowner at Bessbrook.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house 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 terraces along the square were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The architect of the houses is not known with certainty; Charles Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook during the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings.

Charlemont Square did not appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. In that year, Griffith's Valuation noted that Charlemont Square West — captioned "new row" — was the only side of the square to have been completed, though all 26 of its buildings remained unoccupied. The remainder of the square's buildings were 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 stipulating, among other things, that fowl and pigs should not be kept in the family quarters or in the yard (though a pig-sty and fowl-run in the garden were permitted), and that children must be sent to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 15 Charlemont Square West was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Patrick Rice and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Its occupants changed frequently over the following decades, but its assessed value remained unaltered until the 1950s. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906 depicts the building in its current layout. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by Mary Jane Barron, whose family were employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company as linen weavers and lappers; it was then described as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the house was occupied by the O'Callaghan family, who remained at the address until at least the 1970s. No. 15 was purchased outright by Sean O'Callaghan in 1968, and its value was increased to £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

During the 20th century the mill at Bessbrook 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 Company continued to own the housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals and firms — the majority were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, in around 1970. The sale of property was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which ultimately led to the closure of the mill in 1972.

No. 15 Charlemont Square West was listed in 1981 and was included within 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 from 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. Bessbrook is itself internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, begun in the 1840s and contemporary with Port Sunlight and Bourneville.

ALTERATIONS

Alterations to the building include the replacement of all original windows with uPVC casements, the application of dry dash render to the front facade, and the addition of a two-storey flat-roofed extension to the rear.