16 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

16 College Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a two-storey, two-bay terraced dwelling built in approximately 1874–1877 for workers employed at Bessbrook Mill. It forms one of 18 nearly identical houses that make up the western terrace of College Square, a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged along three sides around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. The house is constructed of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite — the same granite used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall, Liverpool — and was designed to an unknown architect's plans, although the most likely candidate is John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The listing extends to the house itself, its gate and railings.

Architectural Character and External Appearance

The front elevation faces northeast and is flush with the rest of the terrace. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite with stepped red brick dressings to the door and window jambs, painted stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The dwellings along the terrace are grouped in pairs, each pair being symmetrical: doors are grouped to the centre, flanked on either side by a single window at ground floor level. Each pair is set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping, rising to rectangular-section chimneys at the apex. The line of each verge continues vertically down the front facade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired group of dwellings.

The roof is pitched and covered in fibre cement slate with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The chimney to the southeast is rectangular in 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 carrying four terracotta clay pots and two buff clay pots. The eaves are flush and finished with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above — though this decorative eaves course along the full western terrace is currently masked by modern electrical wiring. Numerous television aerials further detract from the setting.

Rainwater goods to the front are generally metal, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; the front downpipe is recessed into the stepped red brick quoins. To the rear, guttering and downpipes are uPVC, with the rear return having box guttering discharging to square-section downpipes.

Principal Elevation

The front northeast elevation is near-symmetrical with a regular pattern of openings. At first floor level there are two windows aligned directly above the ground floor openings. All windows are double-hung 1-over-1 sliding timber sash windows with horns. At ground floor level the door surround has a stepped red brick surround and a gauged brick arch with a flush keystone detail to the head; the window to the southeast side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill. The entrance door is a panelled painted timber door with two glazed panels of clear and coloured glass in its upper half, with brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight with two vertical glazing bars above.

A modest front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped painted metal railings. A similar foot gate hung on slim posts to the northwest opens onto a paved path leading to the front door.

Southeast and Northwest Elevations

To the southeast, the building is attached to No. 15 College Square West. To the northwest it is attached to No. 17 College Square West.

Rear and Southwest Elevation

Access to the rear southwest-facing elevation is limited. Where visible, it includes a top-opening timber casement window at first floor level to the southeast, with coloured glazing and a stone cill, and a similar window with clear glazing below at ground floor level; both look into the enclosed rear yard. A two-storey pitched-roof rear return projects from the northwest end of the rear elevation to the rear site boundary to the southwest. This return was added in approximately 1997 and has a smooth cement render finish throughout. The southwest side of the rear return has a two-part side-opening timber casement window at first floor level. The southeast side has a three-part casement window and a door to its northeast, both at ground floor level and facing into the rear yard. First floor windows of the rear return have modern metal grills fitted; windows of the rear return have slim concrete cills. The yard boundary walling has a smooth cement render finish, and a pair of tall modern two-part galvanised metal gates leads from the rear access route into the narrow concrete yard.

Alterations

During a renovation carried out in approximately 1997, the windows and entrance door were replaced and the two-storey rear return was constructed. The addition of this large rendered extension and the use of modern finishes detract from the building's character.

Group Value and Setting

No. 16 College Square West is set within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983. It has significant group value as one of 53 dwellings forming College Square, itself a rare example of a formally planned Victorian square in the province. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard 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 facades are generally much altered across the square.

The eastern terrace of the square consists of 23 dwellings built in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing, stepped in groups of six to follow the subtle relief of the site and terminating at its southeastern end with the former village Institute building (the old Town Hall). The northern terrace, the shortest side of the square at only 12 houses wide, contains distinctly larger two-storey dwellings. The former school building is located at the southeastern 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 some established trees at the northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings sits to the southeast. An open children's playground occupies the centre of the square and includes three granite monuments. One monument 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 its current location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Ltd in 1878.

Historical Context

The origins of Bessbrook date to 1761 when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site, then known simply as "The Green." It was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, only a handful of significant structures existed: Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it exists today 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, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson stated that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose a rural site near Newry with water power, a surrounding agricultural population, and locally cultivated flax. His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning and development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic aims led him to offer employment and accommodation to the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside, hoping to encourage self-improvement.

Bessbrook became known as the village without the "Three P's": Richardson stipulated there would be no public house and no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence. In their place he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The population voted to preserve these conditions 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. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson expanded his factory and workforce considerably. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making him the principal employer and landowner in the village. Between 1861 and 1871 the population rose from 637 to 2,215 and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house the growing workforce. College Square followed in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890, prompted by the further expansion of Richardson's business. The factory itself was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The mid-1880s were described in the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide as "a period of intense building activity in the village" during which "the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established with the building of College Square."

The houses along the western terrace of College Square, including No. 16, were constructed between approximately 1874 and 1877. The Annual Revisions first recorded Nos 1–12 College Square West in 1874, with Nos 13–18 added by 1877. Each house was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenancy agreements required occupants to keep fowl and pigs out of the family quarters and yard (a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden), and to send children to school until they were old enough to work in the mill.

No. 16 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Ms Margaret Donegan and valued at £6. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. During the 1911 Census of Ireland the house was occupied by William John Gillespie, employed at Richardson's factory as a mill clerk, and was described 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 was occupied by a Mr Robert Martin. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the rateable value had risen to £10.

During the Second World War the mill's workers supplied cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company began selling its housing stock in the 1960s as the post-war downturn in the textile market took hold, a process which foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972. George Preston purchased No. 16 outright in approximately 1969 and continued to lease it to the Martin family.

No. 16 College Square West was listed in 1981. The Bessbrook Conservation Area was 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 planned development of Bessbrook — including the uniform terraces of Charlemont Square and College Square — influenced the design of the 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."