2 College Square North, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 2 College Square North is a modest two-storey, two-bay terraced dwelling built in approximately 1890 for workers at Bessbrook Spinning Company's linen mill. It is constructed of local Newry Granodiorite stone and forms part of a row of twelve similar houses making up the northern side of College Square. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881 who was also responsible for extending the mill itself. The house is arranged on an L-plan facing southeast, with a two-storey rear return.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The front southeast elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and near-symmetrical in its fenestration. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite throughout. Door and window openings are square-headed with gauged brickwork, stepped red brick dressings to jambs, and painted stone cills. All windows are top-opening timber casements, with two on the first floor aligned directly above the ground floor openings. A six-panelled painted timber door with black iron furniture is set beneath a square-headed fanlight. A window sits to the southwest side of the door.

The roof is pitched and finished with fibre cement tiles and roll-top black clay ridge tiles. Eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. The chimney to the southwest, rebuilt in modern rustic brick, is of rectangular-section red brick and carries two terracotta clay pots. The chimney to the northeast retains its original red brick and carries three buff clay pots and one terracotta clay pot. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes, though original metal guttering has been retained to the front southeast elevation.

A modest front garden is enclosed by a red brick dwarf wall topped with hooped painted metal railings. A foot gate on slim posts to the northeast opens onto a paved path leading to the front door, with a paved area to the northwest of the garden and some established shrubs.

To the southwest, the building is attached to No. 1 College Square North, and to the northeast it is attached to No. 3 College Square North.

The northwest elevation has limited access but shows a two-storey rear return projecting northwest to meet the yard boundary wall. The rear yard to the southwest is a single reduced bay in width and contains a painted sheeted timber door with modern block infill to the opening jambs, leading to the rear access route. The yard boundary wall is of random-coursed rock-faced local stone with a concrete coping. A timber casement window is visible at first floor level facing northwest into the yard. The rear return has two windows to its southwest side at first floor level, with no openings visible to the northeast or northwest elevations of the return. The rear elevation generally has a painted smooth cement render finish with timber casement windows and slim cills. An oil tank, raised to first floor level, is supported on concrete lintels above the yard.

A large extension and some modern external finishes detract somewhat from the building's character and heritage value.

SETTING

No. 2 forms part of College Square, a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged along the north, west, and east sides of a central green. 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. Rear yards are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades across the square are generally much altered.

The eastern terrace comprises 23 dwellings, stepped in groups of six to follow the subtle relief of the site, and terminates at its southeastern end with the village's old Institute building, which served as the Town Hall. The western terrace comprises 18 dwellings, for the most part 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 the western terrace. The northern terrace — of which No. 2 forms a part — is the shortest of the three at only 12 houses wide, but the houses are distinctly larger two-storey buildings with steeply pitched roofs.

The central area of the square is divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The northwest section contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its northwest boundary. A further lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings sits to the southeast, and an open children's playground occupies the centre of the square. The playground contains three granite monuments. The first 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." The 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 noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly standing in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently moved to its current location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates to 1761, when a Mr John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on a site then known simply as "The Green". The name Bessbrook is said to derive from Pollock's wife Elizabeth — known as Bess — and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s few buildings had been erected at Bessbrook; the first edition Ordnance Survey map records only 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 and a member of the Religious Society of Friends, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. In his own words, Richardson "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and so chose a country location near Newry with water power, a local flax-growing population, and available labour. His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic intentions led him to provide his workers with good living conditions, recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and the distribution of milk, tea and cocoa. He established Bessbrook as a social experiment in which workers could live and work contentedly, deliberately stipulating that there would be no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence — a combination known locally as the absence of the "Three P's." The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day there is no public house at Bessbrook. Police were not stationed there until the turn of the 20th century.

The village was laid out in stages, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863 following the purchase of his brother's shares. The local linen industry experienced a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, enabling Richardson to greatly enlarge his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson both principal employer and principal landowner at 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 influx of workers.

College Square was laid out in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890 in response to the continued expansion of Richardson's business. The mid-1880s were described as "a period of intense building activity in the village" during which the factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The square's two-storey houses were arranged along the north, west, and east sides of an open green intended for recreational use, with the bowling green at the southern end added in 1911. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite was of high quality and was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. The northern row of twelve houses, including No. 2, was the last to be erected, in approximately 1890.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement including stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs — these were not permitted in the living quarters or the yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were allowed in the garden — and a binding clause obliged tenants to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 2 College Square North was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John Lowe and valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Lowe was still resident at the 1911 Census of Ireland, at which time he was employed as a mechanic at Richardson's mill. The census building return described the house as a second-class dwelling containing 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 a Mr Archibald Chambers.

During the 20th century the mill continued to expand and gained international recognition for the Bessbrook Spinning Company. During the Second World War the mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when dwellings along College Square began to be sold to private individuals and firms, a process necessitated by the post-war downturn in the local textile market that preceded the mill's closure in 1972. The building was subsequently occupied by the British Army. The Chambers family purchased No. 2 College Square North outright in approximately 1968, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value of the building had risen to £8.

No. 2 College Square North was listed in 1980 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct form and character. The carefully planned development of Bessbrook, including the uniform terraces at Charlemont Square and College Square, is recognised as having influenced the design of the later English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. College Square and the earlier Charlemont Square could be considered of international importance as part of one of the earliest planned mill villages, begun in the 1840s.