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

No. 10 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 the western terrace of Charlemont Square, Bessbrook, County Armagh, and is listed along with its gate, railings, and yard walling.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is L-plan in form, facing northeast, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return added to the southwest. The walls are built in generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality local granite), with painted red brick dressings throughout. Window and door openings have painted stone cills and stepped painted red brick surrounds, with gauged-brick cambered heads, though the doorway head has been squared off with painted smooth cement render. The pitched roof is now covered in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles, replacing the original slates. A rectangular-section red brick chimney stack sits to the northwest, fitted with one terracotta pot and one buff clay pot. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course, and metal half-round guttering runs along the front elevation, discharging to circular-section downpipes; uPVC rainwater goods serve the rear elevation.

Principal (northeast) front elevation The front elevation is nearly symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by a concrete dwarf wall 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 six-panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade; the door has a semi-circular glazed section at the top with radial glazing bars and a square-headed fanlight above. A window opening sits to the northwest side at ground floor level. The facade follows a regular pattern: two windows at first floor level align with the ground floor openings, all fitted with 1/1 double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

Northwest elevation The building is attached at the northwest to No. 11 Charlemont Square West.

Rear (southwest) elevation The rear elevation faces southwest and is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone boundary walling around a concrete yard, accessed through a sheeted painted timber door from the rear access route. The boundary walling retains a small brick-arched drainage feature to the northwest. At ground floor level on the southeast end of this elevation there is a wider-than-standard side-opening timber 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 this facade, the single-storey rear return projects southwest to the yard boundary wall; it is finished in smooth cement render with a flat felt-covered roof. The southeast side of the rear return has a painted timber panelled door with two glazed upper panels, and a top-opening timber casement window to its left. The rear elevation generally has a smooth rendered finish, with timber casement windows and concrete cills at ground floor level and uPVC rainwater goods throughout.

Southeast elevation The building is attached at the southeast to No. 9 Charlemont Square West.

SETTING AND GROUP VALUE

No. 10 is one of twenty-five similar houses which, together with a larger two-storey-with-attic shop building to the southeast, form the western terrace of Charlemont Square. The square as a whole comprises 66 buildings in total — dwellings and shops — arranged on three sides 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 typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The terraces to the east and west are stepped in groups of two dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. Rear yards, enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed door openings onto a wide rear access route, are much altered with extensions of varying shapes and sizes. Front facades along the east and west terraces are nearly uniform, 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, consisting of only eight houses, which are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central green is now laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at 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 CONTEXT

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates from 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a John Pollock. The site was then simply known as "The Green" but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth ("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 only significant structures 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 on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson, in his own words, "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 village was established in phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. The architect of the majority of the housing is not known; however, Richardson's layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning and developing Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson was himself a member of the Religious Society of Friends and, according to the historian Harrison, possessed a typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic motivation, seeking to provide jobs and good working conditions for his employees. He brought the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook, intending that good living standards would foster good relations between employer and employed and encourage self-improvement.

Bessbrook is widely known as a village without the "Three P's": Richardson stipulated there would be no public house ("Public House"), no pawn shop ("Pawn Shop"), and therefore no need for "Police" to be stationed there. In exchange, he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. This arrangement proved effective: the majority of the population voted to preserve it 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 sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after purchasing 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, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook by the mid-1860s.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house an 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 the new developments. The two- and two-and-a-half-storey houses were built along the north, west, and east sides of an open green intended as a recreational space — an 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan shows a tennis ground within the green. 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 role may have been limited to expanding the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The houses were constructed in Newry Granodiorite, quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This same granite was used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool.

Charlemont Square was not depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. In that year, Griffith's Valuation noted that Charlemont Square West — captioned "new row" — was the only side of the square to have been completed, though all 26 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 was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing stipulations about keeping fowl and pigs (permitted in the garden but not in the family quarters or yard), and were obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 10 Charlemont Square West was constructed around 1862 and initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Alexander McComb, valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the value remained unchanged until the 1950s. The building appears on the 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan in its current layout. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by John O'Hagan, a local dealer whose family members worked as mechanics, weavers, and dressers at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), No. 10 was occupied by a Ms. Lucy Rock, whose family remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining international recognition for the Bessbrook Spinning Company. During the Second World War, mill workers were tasked with producing cloth for military uniforms. The company retained ownership of the Charlemont Square houses until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals and firms; the majority were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. The sale of property at Bessbrook was driven by the post-war downturn 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. 10 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and its rateable value was increased to £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

No. 10 Charlemont Square West was listed in 1981. Bessbrook was designated a Conservation Area in 1983 in recognition of its historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct form and character. The Conservation Area Guide notes that Bessbrook's carefully planned development — including the uniform terraces at 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. Bessbrook is also internationally significant as an early planned mill village, begun in the 1840s, pre-dating Port Sunlight and Bourneville by several decades.

Around 1980, the building underwent an extensive renovation that included re-slating the roof, repointing the stonework, and installing cast iron rainwater goods. The current sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999. A single-storey flat-roofed extension was subsequently added to the rear. At the time of the second survey, the building remained in use as a private dwelling and retained its original Victorian character.