23 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, Co. Armagh, BT35 7AF

23 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian mid-terrace house, built around 1862 to designs by an unknown architect. It forms part of Charlemont Square West, the western terrace of a formally planned Victorian square comprising 66 buildings in total, arranged on three sides around a central green. The listing extends to the house itself, its entrance gate, railings, and yard walling. The building sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983.

Origins and Historical Context

Bessbrook's origins lie in 1761, when a John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on land then simply known as 'The Green'. The settlement was subsequently renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. The First Edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s records only a handful of structures on the site — chiefly Mount Caulfield House and several thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it is known 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 (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later explained that he had a great aversion to being responsible for a factory population in a large town, and deliberately chose a rural site near Newry with water power, a dense local population, and ready supplies of flax. His layout of the village was influenced by the planning principles of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Richardson's approach was philanthropic as well as practical. He recruited the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside, hoping to improve their circumstances and habits. He is particularly associated with what became known as the village of the 'Three P's' — or rather, their deliberate absence: there was to be no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore, Richardson argued, no need for Police. In place of a public house, he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at numbers 1 to 5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and Bessbrook remains without a public house 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 after buying out his brother's shares. The local linen industry experienced a significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when the Union blockade cut off access to American cotton, and Richardson used this opportunity to greatly expand both his factory and his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remaining Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal landowner as well as the main employer at Bessbrook. To accommodate the rapid influx of workers — between 1861 and 1871 the population grew from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296 — Richardson had Charlemont Square laid out between 1862 and 1866. Brett describes the square as the centrepiece of the new developments.

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 confined to the expansion of the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The Natural Stone Database records that the houses were constructed of Newry Granodiorite, a granite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This stone was used throughout most of the buildings at Bessbrook and is of high enough 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 does not appear on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had begun by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year records Charlemont Square West — described as 'new row' — as the only completed side of the square, though all 26 houses along it remained unoccupied. The remaining sides of the square 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 containing specific stipulations: fowl and pigs were not permitted in the parts of the property occupied by the family or in the yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden if desired. Tenants were also required to send their children to school until they were old enough to work at the mill.

Bessbrook is internationally recognised as an early planned mill village. Its development preceded and is considered to have influenced the famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), all of which directly influenced town and country planning worldwide.

History of No. 23 Specifically

No. 23 Charlemont Square West was built around 1862. The Annual Revisions record that it was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr James Smith and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicts the building in its current layout, including a tennis ground within the central green. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by William John Woods, a reed maker employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, and was classified as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. The Woods family continued to live at No. 23 until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century, the Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to expand, gaining international recognition, and mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms during the Second World War. The Company retained ownership of the housing until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold off. The majority were purchased around 1970 by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer. The sale of property was driven by the post-war decline in the local textile market, which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 23 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and was revalued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72).

The house was listed in 1981. Around 1980, it underwent extensive renovation, including re-slating of the roof, repointing of the stonework, and the addition of cast iron rainwater goods. The single-storey flat-roofed rear extension was added around 1989, and the current sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999. At the time of the second survey, the house continued to be used as a private dwelling and retained its original Victorian character despite the rear extension.

Exterior Description

The house is of L-plan form, facing northeast, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return added around 1989. The walling is generally of random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite, with painted red brick dressings. Window and door openings have painted stone cills and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered heads, though the window heads are generally now squared off with smooth cement render. The roof is pitched, finished in fibre cement rather than the original slates, with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest with a single terracotta pot. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation faces northeast, is near-symmetrical, and sits flush with the main terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the façade; the door has two glazed panels to its upper half, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a single window opening to the northwest on the ground floor, and two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings. All windows are double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

Northwest Elevation

The building is attached to No. 24 Charlemont Square West on its northwest side.

Rear (Northeast) Elevation

The rear elevation faces northeast and is enclosed within a concrete yard bounded by rock-faced random-coursed stone walling, accessed through a sheeted painted timber door from the rear access route. The boundary walling retains a brick-arched drainage feature. At ground-floor level on the southeast end of this elevation there is a wider two-part side-opening casement window with a replacement concrete cill. At first-floor level, centrally positioned, is a double-hung sliding timber sash window. From the northwest end of this façade, the single-storey rear return projects southwest to the yard boundary wall; it has a smooth cement render finish, a flat felt-covered roof, and uPVC rainwater goods. The southeast side of the rear return has a painted timber door with a glazed top half, and a top-opening timber casement window to its left-hand side. The rear elevation generally has a smooth rendered finish, painted at ground-floor level, with timber casement windows and concrete cills at ground-floor level and uPVC rainwater goods.

Southeast Elevation

The building is attached to No. 22 Charlemont Square West on its southeast side.

Setting

No. 23 forms part of Charlemont Square West, one of three terraces — east, west, and north — arranged around a central green primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. 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. The east and west terraces step in groups of two dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. To the rear, each dwelling has a larger yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling, with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear façades are much altered with extensions of various shapes and sizes. Front façades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces, with five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West having traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest, comprising only eight houses, but these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings.

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