15 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

15 College Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a two-storey, two-bay terraced dwelling built in approximately 1877 for mill workers, constructed of locally quarried stone and forming part of the formally planned College Square. It was built to designs by an unknown architect, though the most likely candidate is John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881, who was also responsible for extending the mill itself. The house has an L-plan form facing northeast, with a single-storey rear return.

Historical and Social Context

The story of this house cannot be separated from the story of Bessbrook itself. The village was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill near Newry and began building housing for his workers. Richardson had a deliberate aversion to establishing a factory population in a large town and chose this rural site for its water power, local flax cultivation, and surrounding countryside. He was influenced in his planning by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for laying out Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Richardson established Bessbrook as a social experiment rooted in Quaker ideological beliefs, intending to provide good living and working conditions as a means of fostering positive relations between employer and employee. He brought the poor and unqualified from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook, hoping they would improve their circumstances. He famously stipulated that the village would contain none of the so-called Three P's — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore no need for Police. In their place he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day Bessbrook has no public house. Police were not stationed there until the turn of the 20th century.

The local linen industry expanded dramatically during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off and demand for linen surged. Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce during this period. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making him both the principal employer and chief landowner at Bessbrook. Between 1861 and 1871 the village population rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses increased from 73 to 296. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate this growth.

College Square was laid out in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890 as the business continued to expand. The mid-1880s were a period of intense building activity in the village, and the square's construction re-established the earlier ideals of the planned settlement. Richardson's factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The terraces forming College Square were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The houses along College Square West were constructed between approximately 1874 and 1877: the Annual Revisions first recorded numbers 1–12 in 1874, with the adjoining numbers 13–18, including No. 15, added by 1877.

The stone used throughout Bessbrook is Newry Granodiorite, a high-quality local granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate. This same material was used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool.

No. 15 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. John McGrath, with a rateable value of £6. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. During the 1911 Census, the house was occupied by Thomas Leitch, a local pedlar whose family were employed at the mill; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of six inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the building was valued at £7 and 10 shillings, and the Leitch family remained in residence. During the Second World War, mill workers at Bessbrook were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the post-war downturn in the textile market prompted the sale of properties along College Square to private individuals. The mill itself closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army. A Mr. William Black occupied No. 15 in approximately 1960 and purchased it outright in approximately 1969. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the rateable value had risen to £10.

The carefully planned development of Bessbrook, including the uniform terraces at both Charlemont Square and College Square, is widely recognised as having 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 in turn directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. College Square and the earlier Charlemont Square could therefore be considered of international importance as part of one of the earliest planned mill villages in these islands.

No. 15 College Square West was listed in 1981 and 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. A renovation carried out in approximately 1995 included the replacement of the windows to the front façade.

Architecture and External Appearance

No. 15 is one of 18 similar houses forming the western terrace of College Square (a formally designed late-Victorian square consisting of 53 mill workers' dwellings in total), arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground, with primary access from Fountain Street to the southeast. The square represents a rare occurrence of a formally planned Victorian square in the province.

The external walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite, with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, painted stone windowsills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The dwellings are grouped in pairs along the terrace; each pair is symmetrical, with doors grouped together at the centre and flanked on opposite sides by single windows at ground floor level. Each pair is set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile copings, rising to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. The line of the verge is continued vertically down each front northeast façade by stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings. 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 chimney to the northwest is of rectangular section, built in red and buff brick, with recessed panels of buff brick, a raised corbel course of red and buff brick below a decorative chimney cap, and four terracotta clay pots and two buff clay pots. The eaves are flush, with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. This decorative eaves course to the front façade is, however, now masked by modern electrical wiring on all dwellings along College Square West, and many television aerials further detract from the overall character. Guttering is generally uPVC half-round, discharging to circular-section galvanised metal downpipes; the downpipe to the front northeast elevation is recessed into the walling of the stepped red brick quoins.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern. There are two windows at first floor level, aligned with the ground floor openings. All windows are top-opening timber casements. At ground floor level, the door surround has a stepped red brick surround and a gauged brick arch with flush keystone detail to the head; the window to the northwest side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the sill. The entrance door is a four-panelled painted timber door with a semi-circular glazed section at the top containing three radial glazing bars and brass furniture; there is a square-headed fanlight above.

A modest front garden is laid to lawn with some mature shrubs, enclosed by hooped painted metal railings. A similar foot gate, hung on slim posts to the southeast, opens onto a paved path leading to the front door.

Southeast Elevation

On the southeast side, No. 15 is attached to No. 14 College Square West.

Southwest (Rear) Elevation

Access to the rear southwest-facing elevation was limited. Where visible, it consists of original stone walling at first floor level, with two top-opening timber casement windows with stone sills (one to the northwest has broken glass). At ground floor level there is a painted finish, with a top-opening casement window to the centre and a diminutive window to the southeast. A single-storey mono-pitched rear return projects to the northwest into the enclosed rear yard to the southwest; this return has a painted render finish. The yard boundary walling is of random-coursed rock-faced local stone, now partly rendered to the northwest, with a painted sheeted timber door to the southeast leading from a rear access route into the yard.

Northwest Elevation

On the northwest side, No. 15 is attached to No. 16 College Square West.

Setting

No. 15 forms part of College Square West, one side of a planned arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings set 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. Rear yards are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route; rear façades are generally much altered.

The terrace to the east consists of 23 dwellings built in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing; these are stepped in groups of six to respect the subtle relief of the site and terminate at the southeastern end with the old Institute building, which served as the village Town Hall. The northern terrace is the shortest in the square at only 12 houses wide; though similar in style to the other terraces, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The former school building is located at the southeast end of the western terrace.

The central area of the square is now divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The area to the northwest contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees along its northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings lies to the southeast, and an open children's playground occupies the centre of the square. The playground contains three granite monuments. One records: "Erected A.D. 1911 in respectful memory of George Wright, Head Mason. John McClelland, Head Millwright. Michael Boyle, Flax Buyer. Who each faithfully served the Bessbrook firm for nearly 50 years. Also Robert Ross, Mill Manager. Austin Kennedy, Rougher." A second records: "The garden in memory of James N. Richardson is arranged by his wife as a playground for the children of Bessbrook whom he loved November 1927," with an inscription on the opposite side noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently moved to this location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.

Materials

Roof: fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. Rainwater goods: metal and uPVC. Walling: Newry Granodiorite. Windows: timber casements. The listing extends to the house, gate, railings, and walling.