13 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

13 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house, built between 1862 and 1866 as part of the planned mill village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The house forms part of the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square, one of 27 similar dwellings that together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings to the southeast make up that terrace. The square as a whole comprises 66 buildings arranged along its north, west and eastern sides around a central green, accessed primarily from Fountain Street to the southeast.

The building is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a large two-storey rear return added around 1984. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate, the same stone used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. Dressings are in painted red brick, with painted stone cills and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered door and window openings; the doorway head to the front southwest elevation has been squared off with painted smooth cement render. The pitched roof is clad in fibre cement with angled black clay ridge tiles, and there is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest with two buff clay pots. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater goods are metal with half-round guttering.

The front elevation is near-symmetrical, set flush with the main terrace and set back slightly from the larger shop buildings at the southeastern end of the row. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth cement-rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim metal posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the façade; the door has brass furniture and two semi-circular-headed glazed upper sections with decorative glazing. The façade has a regular fenestration pattern with two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings. The front northwest elevation has 1/1 double-hung timber sliding sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes, installed in 1999. To the rear southeast elevation, top-opening timber casement windows are fitted, with side-opening timber casement windows to the rear return.

To the northwest, the house is attached to No. 14 Charlemont Square East. To the southeast it is attached to No. 12 Charlemont Square East. The rear elevation faces northeast, with a single-bay two-storey pitched-roof rear return projecting northeast into the rear yard at the southeast end. A planked painted timber door leads from the rear access route to a narrow L-shaped concrete yard; a further door, similar to that on the front elevation, is positioned on the northwest side of the rear return. The rear northeast façade has a generally roughcast cement-rendered finish with top-opening timber casement windows; single side-opening casement windows are provided at ground- and first-floor level on the northeast end of the rear return.

The building retains its external Victorian character overall despite the replacement of the original roof slates with fibre cement, the addition of the rear return in around 1984, the installation of the current sash window frames in 1999, and various internal alterations.

In its wider setting, No. 13 forms part of Charlemont Square's eastern terrace, where the houses step in groups of two to follow the subtle relief of the ground. Each house in the terrace is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling and hooped metal railings. Rear yards are generally larger, enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed door openings onto a wide rear access route; rear façades across the square are much altered with various extensions. The central green of the square is now laid to lawn, enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at its boundary. A children's playground to the southeast includes a monument commemorating the installation of electric lighting in 1911, and Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.

Charlemont Square was laid out by John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg who had purchased one of the derelict mills at Bessbrook in 1845 and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863, and Lord Charlemont sold him the remainder of the Camlough Estate in 1865, making Richardson by the mid-1860s the principal employer and landowner in the village. The square was built to accommodate a rapidly expanding workforce: between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. The architect of the housing is not known with certainty, though the terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. Charles Brett suggested that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in the village during the 1860s, though his role may have been confined to the mill buildings. Richardson's layout of the village was influenced by the work of the American Quaker William Penn, responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Bessbrook was conceived as a model village and social experiment. Richardson's Quaker beliefs informed his approach: he aimed to provide workers with good living conditions, recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, and well-stocked shops — several of which occupied the larger ground-floor premises at Nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East. The village became known for being without the "Three Ps" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police — a state of affairs that the majority of the population voted to preserve in the 1870s. Police were not stationed at Bessbrook until the turn of the 20th century. Occupants of the company-owned houses, each containing between three and five rooms with a yard or garden of approximately one-eighth of an acre, were required under their lease to keep pigs and fowl away from the family quarters, and to send their children to school until they were old enough to work in the mill.

Griffith's Valuation of 1862 noted that Charlemont Square West — described as a "new row" — was the only side of the square completed at that date, though all 26 houses along it remained unoccupied. Construction of the eastern terrace, including No. 13, had commenced by 1862, and all buildings along the square were completed and occupied by at least 1866 according to the Annual Revisions. The Annual Revisions record that No. 13 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Samuel Nummery and valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Its value remained unchanged until the 1950s, despite frequent changes of occupant. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicted the building in its current layout. The 1911 Census of Ireland recorded the house as a second-class dwelling of five rooms, occupied by John Vaughan, a Master Machinist at Richardson's factory. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the house was occupied by a Mr James Morgan, whose family continued to reside there until at least the 1970s.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the Charlemont Square dwellings until the 1960s, when they began to be sold to private individuals and firms. The majority of houses along the square were purchased around 1970 by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer; No. 13 was purchased outright by Morrow in that year and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72). The sale of property was precipitated by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which it was occupied by the British Army.

No. 13 Charlemont Square East was listed in 1981. Bessbrook Conservation Area was designated in 1983 in recognition of the village's historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct form and character. Bessbrook is internationally significant as an early planned mill village, contemporary with — and according to the Conservation Area Guide an influence on — the English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning across the world. The listing covers the house, gate, railings and yard walling.