1 Lakeview, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 1 Lakeview is a two-storey, three-bay, stone-built semi-detached dwelling, constructed prior to 1861 as part of the early planned mill village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. It is the earliest of the four houses collectively known as "Lakeview," predating Nos. 3 and 4 (built between 1861 and 1866) and No. 2 (built around 1875). The house was designed by an unknown architect and was built for occupation by mill managers and members of the professional classes associated with Bessbrook Mill. The listing covers the house and its gate screen.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building has a rectangular plan form facing south-east, with a single-storey monopitched rear return to the rear yard. It is attached on its south-west side to No. 2 Lakeview and to the rear of the Spar shop building to the north-west.

The roof is hipped and finished in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. There are two chimneys, both with a painted smooth render finish: a rectangular-section chimney to the south-west (shared with No. 2) carrying five buff clay pots, and an L-plan chimney to the north-east carrying three buff clay pots and a single black clay pot. The eaves project and are supported on paired decorative moulded timber corbels. Rainwater goods are generally cast iron, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes. There is a rectangular hopper to the front shared with No. 2, and aluminium ogee guttering to the rear elevation.

The walling throughout the principal elevations is painted lined render with raised quoins and painted stone window cills. Window openings are square-headed with double-hung 6-over-6 sliding timber sash windows with horns, unless otherwise noted.

Principal (south-east) elevation

The front elevation is a two-storey, three-bay composition. The ground-floor windows are wide rectangular openings, each with three casements to the top containing six small panes. The central bay is occupied by a single-storey side-entry porch with a hipped roof, flanked by double-hung 1-over-1 sliding timber sash windows on its south-east and south-west sides. A six-panel painted timber door is set on the north-east side of the porch and opens onto three granite steps returned to the south-east; the door has brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight with four glazed central panes and margin glazing. The first-floor windows are of reduced height. The front elevation looks out over Bessbrook Lake and is fronted by a modest front garden laid to lawn at the south-west and gravelled to the north-east. A shared gravelled access road runs from Prospect Place at the north-east to the front of No. 4 at the south-west end.

Rear (north-west) elevation

The rear elevation faces north-west and is attached to the Spar shop building at the north-east. The two-storey block has ogee guttering and is built in random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite stone with stepped red brick jambs and flat-arch gauged brick heads to the window openings. Two bays face into an enclosed rear yard, with two windows at first-floor level and a single window at ground-floor level in line below the south-west window. The single-storey monopitched rear return is attached below the north-east window, to the north-east side of the yard, and abuts the Spar shop building to the north-east and north-west. This return has uPVC rainwater goods, a painted smooth cement render finish, and two painted flush timber doors to its south-west side, each with a glazed top and a window to their north-west side; the south-east door is the back door, and the north-west door leads to an outbuilding. The walling of No. 2 Lakeview abuts the two-storey block to the south-west and has a similar but now blocked window opening visible at ground-floor level facing into the yard of No. 1. The yard is surfaced in quarry tiles and is bounded to the south-west by the stone walling of the single-storey rear return to No. 2. A painted sheeted timber door in the walling at the north-west end of the yard leads to the rear yard of the Spar shop.

North-east (side) elevation

The north-east side elevation has two bays with regular fenestration and is attached to the similarly detailed four-bay Spar shop building to the north-west. Walling is generally painted lined cement render and the first-floor windows are of reduced height.

Gate screen

Entrance gates at the north-west site boundary extend to the north-east and provide access from Prospect Place to the gravelled access route leading to the Lakeview dwellings. The vehicular gates are painted metal, composed of vertical irons with pointed ball finials, hung on slim dressed granite pillars with pyramidal caps. They are flanked by matching pedestrian foot gates and railings with spearhead finials.

INTERIOR

The building retains its internal plan and some original internal joinery.

MATERIALS SUMMARY

The roof is finished in natural slate. Rainwater goods are generally metal. The principal walling is Newry Granodiorite with painted lined cement render to the front and side elevations. Windows are timber sash throughout.

SETTING

No. 1 Lakeview forms part of the group of four houses collectively known as "Lakeview," comprising two pairs of semi-detached dwellings. Nos. 3 and 4 are similar in character but are two-and-a-half-storey dwellings with gables and some significant differences in detailing. Each house shares access from Prospect Place to the north-east, a tarmaced area fronting the Spar supermarket and accessed from Church Road to the north-west. Each dwelling faces south-east towards its own garden, generally laid to lawn with mature shrubs and trees, and enclosed by stone walling at the south-east extent. The gardens run down towards Bessbrook Lake, a former mill pond associated with Bessbrook Mill. As part of a terrace of four houses, No. 1 forms an important group with the former shop and Quaker meeting house at the centre of the village. The building falls within the Bessbrook Conservation Area.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE

The history of the site at Bessbrook dates to 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a Mr. John Pollock. The place was originally known as "The Green" but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s, very few buildings had been erected at Bessbrook; the only significant structures recorded were Mount Caulfield House, the residence of the Nicholson family, 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 prominent linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills at the site and began constructing housing for his factory workers in the surrounding area. Richardson later recalled that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose Bessbrook for its water power, available local labour, and proximity to flax cultivation. He was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, and his approach to village planning reflected a typical Quaker combination of pragmatic and altruistic intent, aiming to provide good working conditions and living standards for his employees and to encourage self-improvement among the poor and unqualified people he brought from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook.

The layout of the village was begun with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s and was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning and development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Bessbrook is often referred to as a village without the "Three P's," reflecting Richardson's stipulation that there would be no public house and no pawn shop in the settlement, and therefore no need for a police presence. In place of these, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The strategy proved effective: the majority of the population voted to preserve the ordinance 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 experienced a significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged both his factory and his workforce to take advantage of this opportunity. 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 accommodate 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. While the majority of this housing was built for factory workers, the four Lakeview houses were occupied by members of Bessbrook's professional classes, including linen merchants, doctors, and senior managers at Richardson's mill.

The architect of the Lakeview row is not known with certainty. C. E. B. 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.

DOCUMENTARY RECORD

No. 1 Lakeview was first recorded in 1861 on the second edition Ordnance Survey map, which depicted the building in its current layout, alongside the adjoining No. 2 Church Road, and established that both were among the earliest buildings in the village. Griffith's Valuation of 1862 set the initial rateable value of the house at £11 and 10 shillings and recorded that it was leased by John Richardson to a Ms. Hannah Marsh. The Annual Revisions note that the value was increased to £16 and 10 shillings in 1866, by which time Nos. 3 and 4 Lakeview had been constructed. The house passed through a large number of tenants over the following four decades.

The 1911 Census of Ireland records No. 1 Lakeview as occupied by John W. Orr, a factory manager at Richardson's mill. The census building return described it as a first-class dwelling containing 14 rooms. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906 depicted the building in its current form. Martin Hamilton, manager of the Newry and Bessbrook Tramway, occupied the house between approximately 1923 and 1936. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) increased the rateable value to £27 and recorded that the Bessbrook Spinning Company leased the house to a Mr. or Mrs. Lilley.

Throughout the Second World War the mill workers at Bessbrook were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of much of the village's housing until the 1960s, when the post-war downturn in the textile market prompted the sale of its holdings to private individuals and firms. These sales foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 1 Lakeview was purchased outright by George Preston, a local property owner, around 1970, but the building was recorded as vacant by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), at which time its total rateable value stood at £35.

No. 1 Lakeview was listed in 1981. The Bessbrook Conservation Area was 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 English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville, developed by the Cadbury family from 1895, which in turn directly influenced town and country planning all over the world.

Around 1998, No. 1 Lakeview underwent a renovation that included the replacement of its entrance doors and the installation of new sliding sash window frames.