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

5 Charlemont Square West 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, a formally planned terrace of twenty-six houses (one of which is a larger two-storey-with-attic shop building to the southeast) that together make up the western side of Charlemont Square. The square as a whole consists of sixty-six buildings arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The listing covers the house, its gate, railings, and yard walling.

Architectural Description

The house has a rectangular plan facing northeast, with a large two-storey rear return added in 1992. The walls are built in generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate, also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool — 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 now generally squared off with painted smooth cement render. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. A rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest carries two terracotta pots. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater is carried by uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

Principal (northeast) elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by painted smooth-rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate 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 facade. The upper half of the door contains two glazed panels with coloured leaded glazing. Above the door is a square-headed fanlight with black iron furniture. A window sits to the northwest side of the ground floor. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level sit directly above the ground-floor openings, all fitted with double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with window horns.

Northwest elevation

The building is attached to No. 6 Charlemont Square West on the northwest side.

Southeast elevation

On the southeast side the building is attached to No. 4 Charlemont Square West.

Southwest (rear) elevation

The rear elevation faces southwest and is dominated by the two-storey pitched-roof rear return added in 1992, which projects into the rear yard to the full width of the southwest elevation. This return has a single three-part uPVC casement window at first-floor level and a similar window at ground-floor level, both facing southwest. A glazed door at the southeast of the elevation leads to the rear yard, though no access was available during survey. A diagonally planked painted timber door with trefoil-headed painted metal hinges leads from the rear access route into a narrow yard enclosed by smooth-rendered boundary walling with precast concrete capping. The rear return has a generally rough cement-rendered finish with uPVC side-opening casement windows and concrete cills. Both the yard boundary walling and the ground-floor level of the rear return have smooth cement render finishes. The rear return is roofed in fibre cement tiles with uPVC rainwater goods, painted timber soffit and fascia, and a southwest gable with cusp detailing to the timber bargeboard.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook's origins date to 1761 when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site, then simply known as "The Green." It was renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, very few buildings had been erected: only Mount Caulfield House (the residence of the Nicholson family) and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills were depicted.

The village of Bessbrook as it exists today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a prominent linen merchant from Lambeg and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later explained that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town," and so chose a country district near Newry with water power and a local supply of flax. His layout of the village was influenced by the planning principles of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for developing Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Bessbrook was conceived as a model village and social experiment, developed in phases beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson's philanthropic outlook led him to bring the poor and unemployed from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook, providing good standards of living in the belief that this would foster good relations between employer and employees. He famously stipulated that there would be no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence — Bessbrook becoming known as a village without the "Three P's." In return, 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. This arrangement proved effective: the majority of the population voted to preserve the ordinance against alcohol in the 1870s, and to this day there is no public house 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 following the purchase of his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce in response. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal landowner and main employer in the village.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house the influx of new workers. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Brett describes Charlemont Square as the centrepiece of this expansion. The architect of the houses is not known with certainty; Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his involvement may have been limited to the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map (1861) does not depict Charlemont Square, but Griffith's Valuation of 1862 records Charlemont Square West — captioned "new row" — as the only completed side of the square at that date, though all twenty-six buildings along it remained unoccupied. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866 according to the Annual Revisions.

Each house in the square was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign a lease with several stipulations: fowl and pigs were not to be kept in the family quarters or yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden; and tenants were obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

History of No. 5 Charlemont Square West

No. 5 was constructed around 1862 and was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Samuel Frey at a value of £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently in subsequent decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The building appeared on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906 in its current layout. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by David Brady, a spinning master at Richardson's factory, and describes it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by the Malone family, who remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining international recognition, and during the Second World War its workers supplied cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold. The majority of the houses were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. This disposal of property was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 5 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and its value was increased to £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

The house 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. The Conservation Area Guide notes that the planned development of Bessbrook — including the uniform terraces at Charlemont Square — influenced the design of the English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), which in turn "directly influenced town and country planning all over the world." Bessbrook is internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, predating both Port Sunlight and Bourneville by several decades.

In 1992 a two-storey extension was added to the rear of the house, and an extensive renovation was carried out at the same time, including reslating of the roof, installation of a new staircase, and reconstruction of the chimney stack. During the most recent survey the building continued to be used as a private dwelling and retained its original Victorian external character despite these later additions.

Setting

No. 5 forms part of a planned group of sixty-six mill workers' dwellings and shops comprising the east, north, and west terraces of Charlemont Square, arranged around a central green. Each house is set back from the perimeter public 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. 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 are much altered, with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes; front facades along the east and west terraces are nearly uniform. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace, the shortest at only eight houses in width, differs from the others in comprising distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central area of the square is now laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees along its boundary. A children's playground to the southeast includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911, and Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.