2 Maytown Road, Bessbrook, Newry, Co. Armagh, BT35 7LY

Parish of Camlough Church of Ireland Rectory, 2 Maytown Road, Bessbrook

This is the rectory for the Church of Ireland Parish of Camlough, a detached, asymmetrical two-storey building constructed around 1860 by an unknown architect. It stands at the junction of Maytown Road and Main Street, approximately 1 kilometre east of the village of Bessbrook, County Armagh, in the townland of Mullaghglass. The building is associated with the nearby Church of Christ the Redeemer on Convent Hill, completed in 1868. Although a building of genuine Victorian interest, its special architectural character has been sufficiently diminished by later alterations — including replacement uPVC windows and rainwater goods, later extensions, and the addition of a second storey — that it does not meet the threshold for statutory listing and is recorded here for information only.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The rectory has an L-shaped footprint with varying roof pitches, all covered in natural slate, with angled ridge tiles. There are two brown brick chimneystacks, each with a yellow brick band and moulded cornice; one is original and one modern. Decorative painted timber bargeboards run over the eaves. Rainwater goods are a mixture of replacement uPVC and surviving original cast-iron. A pitched slated porch sits at the centre of the building, with a pitched slated extension to the east and a projection to the north of that extension.

External walls are finished in painted roughcast render with a painted smooth rendered plinth. On the main block, first-floor and porch window openings are camber-headed, while ground-floor openings are square-headed; all contain two-over-two timber sliding sash windows with plain reveals and projecting masonry sills. The eastern projection has square-headed window openings with plain reveals and projecting masonry sills, fitted with paired one-over-one timber sliding sash windows with Tudor arches to the upper sashes.

The principal elevation faces north and is asymmetrical. The centrally positioned porch has roll-top ridge tiles and a decorative painted timber bargeboard. The door opening is camber-headed and contains a four-panelled timber door with brass furniture, beneath a plain rectangular overlight, with a modern light fixture mounted to the wall above. The door opens onto a single concrete step down to ground level. The east elevation is abutted by a single-storey lean-to that gives onto an enclosed yard. The west elevation has two camber-headed window openings at first-floor level and two square-headed door openings at ground-floor level. The rear, south-facing elevation has a central projection with square-headed window openings containing one-over-one timber sliding sash windows.

OUTBUILDINGS AND SETTING

A two-storey outbuilding stands to the rear, south of the rectory. It has a pitched natural slate roof with a single red brick chimneystack with a stepped cornice. The walling is masonry with granite return quoins, red brick surrounds to the window and door openings, and painted rendered finish to the east elevation to match the rectory. Paired Tudor-arched sliding sash windows appear at first-floor level on the west elevation.

To the north, on the glebe land, there are two single-storey outbuildings employing the same style and materials as the rear outbuilding. The glebe land is divided from the rectory grounds by a rubblestone wall with a wrought-iron pedestrian gate. The glebe land itself consists of open fields.

The site is bounded to the south along Main Street and to the east beside the outbuildings by rubblestone walling with cock-and-hen coping. Along Maytown Road to the east, the boundary comprises painted roughcast rendered walling with painted masonry capping and gate piers carrying wrought-iron gates with floral motifs, set over a steel cattle grid. A garden lies to the west and north of the rectory, with a stream running along the western site boundary and a former well within the garden.

HISTORY

This building has a notably complex early history, having served several different functions and been physically remodelled at least twice between the 1850s and 1870s. It is the second rectory to serve the Parish of Camlough; the first was built in 1796 in Ballintemple townland (now 40 Ballintemple Road) and was associated with the original parish church of St Jude's, built in 1773–74 on the south side of the village of Camlough.

Before 1861, a small single-storey structure on this site — shown on the 1861 Ordnance Survey map as rectangular with a small projection to the west end — was being used as a combined school and church to serve the rapidly growing population of mill workers at Bessbrook. By 1864 a decision had been taken to build a new parish church at Bessbrook (the present Church of Christ the Redeemer) and to deconsecrate the old church at Camlough. The new church was completed in 1868, after which services on this site ceased and the building was repurposed as a sexton's house. Evidence from the valuation books suggests this conversion did not involve demolishing the existing fabric, but instead added a new single-storey section at a right angle to the west side and a small porch projection to the north — creating a plan broadly similar to what survives today, but apparently without the section to the east. A thumbnail sketch in the valuation book confirms this layout. The work was substantial enough to raise the rateable value from £4 to £14-10-0.

The building's role as a sexton's house was short-lived. Around 1869–70 it became the residence of the then Curate of the Parishes of Camlough and Meigh, Reverend Henry William Lett. The relevant valuation book pages for these years are now missing, but it was evidently shortly after this point that the house was raised to its present two-storey height and most likely extended to the east as well, since when the property next appears in the valuation records its rateable value had risen to £25-10-0. The architect or builder responsible for these works is unknown. Canon James Leslie, in his Armagh Clergy and Parishes of 1911, records that the present glebe house was built with a loan from the Board of Works, but gives no further details.

In 1875, the Parish of Meigh was joined to the Parish of Camlough, and the house became the residence of the new incumbent, Reverend Thomas Jordan. In 1877 Reverend Jordan added the outbuilding to the site, raising the rateable value to £26-10-0. He was succeeded by Reverend Abraham Lockett Ford in 1878, then Reverend William Jones in 1893, Reverend Francis Meredith Moeran in 1895, Reverend Edward Daniel Crowe in 1897, and Reverend Henry Todd in 1900, who remained here until his death in 1942. The 1901 census records the then 40-year-old Reverend Todd living here with one domestic servant, in a first-class dwelling with nine rooms in use.

Later rectors of the parish who have occupied the rectory include Reverend Henry R. Rogers (1942–47), Reverend S. R. Redpath (1947–61), Reverend Alfred Stanley O'Connor (1962–65), Reverend Albert E. Crawford (1965–78), and Reverend Raymond G. Hoey (1978–2017).