17 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 17 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866, forming part of the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square in Bessbrook, County Armagh. The house is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return. The architect is unknown.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The principal walling material is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate), with painted red brick dressings. Window and door openings have painted stone cills and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered heads, though these openings have generally been squared off with painted smooth cement render. The pitched roof is now covered in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles. A rectangular-section red brick chimney stack with a single terracotta pot rises from the northwest end of the roof. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater goods are generally metal with half-round guttering.

The front elevation faces southwest and is near-symmetrical, set flush with the main terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth rendered dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings, with a painted metal foot gate to the southeast. A paved path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade; the upper half of the door contains two glazed panels and is fitted with black iron door furniture. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern, with two windows at first-floor level aligned directly above two ground-floor openings. All four windows are double-hung one-over-one sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes. These sash window frames were installed in 1999.

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 18 Charlemont Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 16 Charlemont Square East.

The rear elevation faces northeast and is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone boundary walling to a concrete yard, accessed through a planked painted timber door from the rear access route. At ground-floor level on the southeast end of the rear elevation there is a wider-than-standard side-opening casement window with a replacement concrete cill. A double-hung sliding timber sash window sits centrally at first-floor level. From the northwest end of the rear facade, the single-storey rear return projects northeast to the yard boundary wall. The return has a roughcast cement render finish and a flat felt-covered roof. Its southeast side features a painted timber door with a glazed upper half, a top-opening timber casement window to its right, and a separate boiler house to the right of that window, accessed from the yard through a painted flush timber door. The rear elevation generally has a smooth rendered finish with concrete cills and a timber casement window at ground-floor level, with the original stone walling retained above. The rear return has roughcast cement render and uPVC rainwater goods.

SETTING

No. 17 forms part of a formally planned arrangement of 66 buildings — comprising mill workers' dwellings and shops — set around a central green along the east, north, and west terraces of Charlemont Square. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings to follow 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 along the square are much altered with extensions of varying shapes and sizes, while front facades along the east and west terraces are nearly uniform. Five larger two-and-a-half-storey buildings at the southeast end of Charlemont Square East and one at the southeast end of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at eight houses wide, though these buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. The central area of the square is laid to lawn, enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some 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.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

Bessbrook's origins lie in 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a John Pollock. The site, originally known as "The Green," was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, few buildings had been erected at Bessbrook. The principal structures at that time were Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began to build housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), stated in his own words that he "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." The 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 provide good living conditions for his workers — including those brought from the surrounding countryside — in the expectation that this would foster improved relations between employer and employee and encourage self-improvement.

Bessbrook is well known as a village without the "Three P's": Richardson stipulated that there would be no public house ("Public House") and no pawn shop ("Pawn Shop") in the settlement, and therefore no need for police ("Police") to be stationed there. In place of public houses, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and distributed milk, tea, and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of the village population voted to preserve this ordinance in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists at Bessbrook. Police were not stationed there 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), when access to American cotton was cut off. Richardson used this opportunity to greatly enlarge his factory and expand his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal landowner and employer in Bessbrook by the mid-1860s. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook 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 accommodate the influx of new workers. The square formed the centrepiece of these new developments. It was not depicted 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, though all 26 buildings along it remained unoccupied at that date. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866, according to the Annual Revisions. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The architect of the houses is not known with certainty; C. E. B. Brett has suggested that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings.

The Newry Granodiorite used in the construction of the square was produced locally at a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite is of high quality and 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 Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement that included stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs (prohibited within the family quarters or yard, though permitted in a pig-sty or fowl-run in the garden), and a binding obligation to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

HISTORY OF THIS SPECIFIC HOUSE

No. 17 Charlemont Square East was constructed between 1862 and 1866. The Annual Revisions record that the house was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Arthur McKeown and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The house is depicted on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Bessbrook of 1906 in its current layout. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by Thomas Haughey, employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company as a flax dresser, and describes it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Haughey continued to reside at the address until approximately 1956, when the Bradley family took possession and remained there until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century the mill continued to expand, gaining international recognition. During the Second World War, workers at the mill were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when properties 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 the properties was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 17 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72).

The house was listed in 1981 and was included within 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. 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 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." Bessbrook predates Port Sunlight and Bourneville and is considered internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages.

At the time of the second survey, the building continued to be used as a private dwelling. The current sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999. The building retains its original Victorian external character, despite the replacement of the original roof slates, the addition of the single-storey flat-roofed rear extension, and the replacement of internal fittings.