16 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

16 College Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-terrace house built around 1883, forming part of College Square — a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged around a central green. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributable to 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, railings, and yard walling.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular in plan, facing southwest, and sits flush with the rest of the eastern terrace. The walls are constructed in random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a granite-like stone quarried on the former Charlemont Estate), with stepped red brick dressings to the door and window jambs, painted stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick openings. The roof is pitched and finished in fibre cement tiles — a replacement for the original natural slates — with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. A rebuilt rectangular-section rustic red brick chimney to the northwest carries two terracotta clay pots.

Rainwater goods are generally metal, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical. At ground-floor level there is a planked timber door with painted metal furniture and a square-headed fanlight above, fitted with four vertical glazing bars. One window sits to the left of the door at ground-floor level, with two further windows at first-floor level aligned above. All windows are double-hung sliding timber sash with horns and two vertical glazing bars. A modest front garden is enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with a matching gate hung on slim posts to the southeast; a paved path leads from the gate to the front door.

Other Elevations

To the northwest, the house is attached to No. 17 College Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 15. Access to the rear northeast elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of random-coursed rock-faced stone walling with a painted planked timber door leading from the rear access route into the yard. A single timber sash window is visible at first-floor level at the centre of this elevation, in original stone walling. A flat-roofed outbuilding occupies the southern corner of the yard.

Setting and Group Value

No. 16 is one of 23 similar houses forming the eastern terrace of College Square, which together with Bessbrook Town Hall (the old Institute building) to the southeast make up the full eastern side of the square. The square comprises three terraces — east, north, and west — arranged around a central area now divided into three sections of lawn. To the northwest is a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at its northwest boundary. To the southeast is a lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings. In the centre is an open children's playground containing three granite monuments.

The first 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." The 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 reverse noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. The third monument, recently moved from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill, details the mill's history from ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Each house in the square is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. The eastern terrace steps in groups of six dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. The shorter northern terrace consists of only 12 houses, which are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey buildings. Rear yards are enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed doors opening onto a wide rear access route; rear facades are generally much altered. Front facades along the eastern terrace are nearly uniform.

Historical Background

The origins of Bessbrook date to 1761 when John Pollock opened a woollen mill and bleach green on a site then known simply as "The Green." The site was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth ("Bess") and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, the first Ordnance Survey map shows little development beyond Mount Caulfield House and a few thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his workers. Richardson later wrote that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town," and deliberately chose a rural location near Newry with water power and a local supply of flax. His layout of the village was influenced by the planning work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic approach led him to provide good housing, recreational and educational facilities, well-stocked shops, and daily distributions of milk, tea, and cocoa to his workers.

Bessbrook became known as a village without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police — a stipulation upheld by popular vote in the 1870s and observed to this day. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863 Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce. Following Lord Charlemont's sale of the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, Richardson became both the principal employer and the main landowner in Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the growing workforce; between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215 and the number of houses from 73 to 296.

College Square was laid out around 1883 in response to further expansion of Richardson's business. The mid-1880s saw intense building activity in the village, and Richardson's factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The square was named after the primary school on its western side, erected in 1849. The houses were built using masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The Newry Granodiorite used in the walling was produced at a quarry on the former Charlemont Estate; stone from this quarry was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign a lease agreeing to various conditions, including restrictions on keeping fowl and pigs within the dwelling or yard (though a pig-sty and fowl-run in the garden were permitted), and an obligation to send children to school until they were old enough to work at the mill.

Occupancy History of No. 16

Annual Revision records show that No. 16 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr James Black, and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings, a valuation that remained unchanged until the 1950s. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by Robert Cunningham, whose family worked at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the housing until the 1960s, when post-war decline in the textile market forced the sale of the College Square dwellings. The majority of the houses were purchased by a Mr George Preston around 1969. The mill itself closed in 1972, after which it was occupied by the British Army. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), No. 16 had been revalued at £8. No. 16 College Square East was listed in 1981 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of the village's significance as a planned mill village.

Wider Significance

Bessbrook is internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages in the British Isles, begun in the 1840s and contemporary with — and considered an influence upon — the celebrated English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), all of which directly influenced town and country planning across the world. College Square itself is a rare example of a formally designed Victorian square in the province of Ulster.