7 College Square North, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 7 College Square North is a modest two-storey, two-bay terraced dwelling built in approximately 1890 as housing for workers of the Bessbrook Spinning Company. It is constructed of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite and forms part of a row of twelve similar houses making up the northern terrace of College Square. The architect is not known with certainty, although the work may be attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881 who was responsible for extending the mill. The building is listed in its own right and forms part of the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill near Newry and began building housing for his workers. The site had earlier origins: in 1761 a Mr John Pollock had opened the first woollen mill and bleach green there, and the place was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, however, the first Ordnance Survey map shows little more than Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills on the site.

Richardson, influenced by the Quaker urban planning of William Penn — responsible for laying out Philadelphia in the late 17th century — established Bessbrook as a social experiment and model village. In his own words he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose a rural site with water power and a local flax-growing tradition. His philanthropic outlook led him to bring the poor and unqualified from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to improve their circumstances. The village became famously known as a settlement without the "Three P's": no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In lieu of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve these conditions in the 1870s, and to this day Bessbrook has no public house. 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 boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took the opportunity to greatly enlarge both his factory and his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making him the principal employer and landowner in Bessbrook. Between 1861 and 1871 the population 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 this growth. College Square followed in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890, responding to the continued expansion of Richardson's business. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85, and the Annual Revisions confirm that the twelve houses of College Square North — the last row of the square to be completed — were erected in approximately 1890.

The stone used throughout Bessbrook, including at College Square, is Newry Granodiorite from a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite is of high quality and was used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants signed a lease containing stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs (permitted in the garden but not in the house or yard), and were required to send their children to school until they were old enough to work in the mill.

No. 7 College Square North was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John Lackey, valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The occupancy changed frequently over subsequent decades. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by Albert Davison, a general labourer whose family worked in the local linen mill; the census building return describes it as a second-class dwelling with five inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the building remained valued at £5 and 10 shillings and was occupied by the Williamson family.

During the Second World War the mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of its Bessbrook housing until the 1960s, when the post-war downturn in the textile market began to make the mill's position untenable. The mill closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army. The College Square dwellings began to be sold to private individuals during the 1960s, and No. 7 was purchased outright by George Preston in approximately 1969. By the close of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the Williamson family still occupied the house and its total rateable value had risen to £8. The building was listed in 1980.

The carefully planned development of Bessbrook — including the uniform terraces of Charlemont Square and College Square — is recognised as having influenced the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn have directly influenced town and country planning throughout the world.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

College Square is a formally designed late-Victorian square consisting of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged along three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The northern terrace, of which No. 7 forms part, is the shortest of the three, comprising twelve houses. Though similar in character to the dwellings along the other terraces, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings with steeply pitched roofs. The eastern terrace is composed of 23 dwellings stepped in groups of six to respect the subtle relief of the site, terminating at its southeastern end with the village Town Hall (the old Institute building). The western terrace consists of 18 dwellings, mostly arranged in pairs and built in a similar style but with some notable differences in detailing; the former school building is located at the southeastern end of this terrace. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings, with rear yards enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling opening onto a wide rear access route.

The central area of the square is now divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The northwestern section contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees along its northwestern boundary; this bowling green was added in 1911. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings occupies the southeastern section, and an open children's playground occupies the centre of the square. The playground contains three granite monuments. One records: "erected A.D. 1911 in respectful memory of George Wright, Head Mason. John McClelland, Head Millwright. Michael Boyle, Flax Buyer. Who each faithfully served the Bessbrook firm for nearly 50 years. Also Robert Ross, Mill Manager. Austin Kennedy, Rougher." A second records: "The garden in memory of James N. Richardson is arranged by his wife as a playground for the children of Bessbrook whom he loved November 1927," with an inscription on the opposite side recording that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument was formerly located in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and has recently been moved to its current position; it details the mill's history from ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.

No. 7 College Square North is of L-plan form, facing southeast, with a two-storey rear return added in approximately 2008. The walling is generally of random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite throughout, with stepped red brick dressings to jambs, stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick openings to doors and windows. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above; this decorative eaves course to the front facade of all dwellings along College Square North is currently masked by modern electrical wiring. There are rectangular-section red brick chimneys to both the southwest and northeast, each with four buff clay pots. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; galvanised metal guttering to the front (southeast) elevation discharges to a uPVC rectangular hopper and circular-section downpipe.

The principal elevation faces southeast and is flush with the rest of the terrace. It is near-symmetrical with a regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level are aligned with the two ground-floor openings, all fitted with double-hung 3-over-3 sliding timber sash windows with horns. A painted sheeted timber door is positioned to the northeast side of the elevation, with a square-headed fanlight above containing four vertical glazing bars, and a window to its southwest side. The modest front yard is laid to lawn and enclosed by a red brick dwarf wall topped with hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the northeast. A paved path leads from the gate to the front door.

To the southwest, the building is attached to No. 6 College Square North. To the northeast, it is attached to No. 8 College Square North.

Access to the northwest elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of the two-storey rear return projecting northwest to the site boundary. The northwestern side of the rear return and the rear yard boundary wall are both of random-coursed rock-faced stone. Walling elsewhere on this elevation is of smooth cement render. The ground floor of the rear return has a timber sash window with a red brick surround to the northwest, with a further timber sash window in line at first-floor level. The rear yard to the southwest is a single reduced bay in width and has a sheet metal door in modern stone boundary walling opening onto the rear access route. A timber sash window is visible above the yard facing northwest, and there is a window at first-floor level to the northeast side of the rear return. No openings are visible to the northeast side.

ALTERATIONS AND CONDITION

No. 7 underwent an extensive renovation in approximately 2008, which included the construction of the two-storey rear return. An attempt has been made to maintain the building's character at the rear by using stone walling to the ground-floor level of this extension, which adds some visual interest lacking from the similarly sized rendered extensions of adjacent properties. However, the use of modern external finishes on the extension detracts somewhat from the building's character and heritage value. Rear facades across the square are generally much altered.