18 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

18 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house, built between 1862 and 1866 as part of the planned mill village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The house forms part of the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square, a formally designed square of 66 buildings arranged on three sides around a central green. The listing extent covers the house itself together with its gate, railings, and yard walling. The building sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates from 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). The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s records few buildings at Bessbrook at that time; the only significant structures shown were Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village 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, in his own words, "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town, so on looking around, fixed upon a place near Newry … with water power and a thick population around, and in a country district where flax was cultivated in considerable quantities." Bessbrook was laid out as a model village in several phases, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, 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. According to historian R. Harrison, Richardson possessed a "typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation to provide jobs and good working conditions for his employees," and his philanthropic spirit led him to bring the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to encourage self-improvement.

Bessbrook is often referred to as a village without the "Three P's," reflecting Richardson's stipulation that there would be no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence. In their place, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops (located at numbers 1 to 5 Charlemont Square East), and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The strategy proved effective: the majority of the population voted to preserve the ordinance in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists 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 following the purchase of his brother's shares. The local linen industry experienced a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took the opportunity to greatly enlarge his factory and increase his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook by the mid-1860s. 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.

C. E. B. Brett describes Charlemont Square as forming the centrepiece of the new developments at Bessbrook. The two-storey and two-and-a-half-storey houses were built along the north, west, and eastern sides of an open green intended as a recreational space (a tennis ground was recorded within the green on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906). The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. Brett suggests 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.

The houses were constructed from Newry Granodiorite, a local granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate. This stone was used in the masonry of most buildings at Bessbrook and is of sufficiently high quality to have been used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool.

Charlemont Square was not shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year noted that Charlemont Square West — described as "new row" — was the only completed side of the square, though all 26 of its buildings remained unoccupied at that time. The remaining buildings around the square were completed and occupied by at least 1866, according to the Annual Revisions.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing several conditions. George Bassett's Book of County Armagh (1888) records that each house possessed "a garden [or yard] containing an eighth of an acre," and that tenants were obliged to keep fowl and pigs out of the family quarters and the yard (though a pigsty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden). Tenants were also bound to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

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 famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which have "directly influenced town and country planning all over the world."

NUMBER 18 IN PARTICULAR

Number 18 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Michael Grimes and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Its occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though its valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by Margaret Murphy, whose family were employed as reelers by the Bessbrook Spinning Company; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by the Thompson family, who remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century the Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to expand, gaining international recognition; during the Second World War the mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold to private individuals and firms. 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 was necessitated by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972. Number 18 was purchased outright by the Thompson family in 1969 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72). The house was listed in 1981 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area in 1983. Around 1995, the house underwent general improvements and had a two-storey rear return added.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

Number 18 is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a large two-storey rear return added around 1995. The design architect is unknown.

The walls are built in generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (granodiorite being the precise geological classification of what is locally termed Newry granite), with red brick dressings. Window cills are of painted stone, and the door and window openings have stepped red brick surrounds with gauged-brick cambered heads — though the doorway and window heads are now generally squared off, with bands of smooth cement render applied to the surrounds. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods on the front southwest elevation consist of metal half-round guttering; uPVC rainwater goods serve the northeast elevation and rear return.

Principal (southwest) elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace, which is set slightly back from the larger shop buildings at the square's southeastern end. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by a smooth cement-rendered dwarf wall topped by plain hooped galvanised metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim metal posts to the southeast. A quarry-tile path leads from the gate to the front door, which is positioned to the southeast of the facade. The door is a panelled painted timber door with three vertical panels to the lower section and a semi-circular-headed glazed top section composed of multiple glass panes; there is black iron furniture, a fanlight above the door with two vertical glazing bars. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern, with two windows at first-floor level set in line with the ground-floor openings. Windows to the front elevation are double-hung timber sliding sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

Northwest elevation

The building is attached on the northwest to number 19 Charlemont Square East.

Northeast elevation

Only a limited view of the rear northeast elevation is possible. Where visible, it includes a single-bay, two-storey pitched-roof rear return at the southeast end projecting northeast into the rear yard, with a painted timber soffit and fascia. A planked painted timber door set in rough-cast stone boundary walling leads from the rear access route into a narrow L-shaped yard. The yard is a single reduced bay in width at its northwest extent and leads to the back door on the northwest side of the rear return. The northeast facade has a generally rough-cast cement-rendered finish and timber top-opening casement windows.

Southeast elevation

The building is attached on the southeast to number 17 Charlemont Square East.

SETTING

Number 18 forms part of Charlemont Square East, itself part of a planned arrangement of 66 mill workers' dwellings and shops comprising a formal square made up of East, North, and West terraces arranged around a central green. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath by a modest front yard typically enclosed by a dwarf wall topped by hooped metal railings. The East and West terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings, reflecting the subtle relief of the site. Each dwelling generally has a larger rear yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling, with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades are much altered, with various extensions of different shapes and sizes. Front facades are nearly uniform along the East and West terraces. Five larger buildings at the southeastern end of Charlemont Square East and one at the southeastern end of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest, at only eight houses wide, though these buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures.

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 and includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in Bessbrook in 1911. Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.