26 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

26 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866, forming part of the planned model village of Bessbrook in County Armagh. The listing extends to the house itself, together with its gate, railings, and yard walling.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house follows a rectangular plan form facing southwest and is one of twenty-seven similar houses which, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings at the south-eastern end, make up the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate — with painted smooth render dressings, painted stone cills, and stepped smooth render surrounds to the square-headed door and window openings. The pitched roof is now covered in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest with two terracotta clay pots. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods are generally metal with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes, though the southwest elevation has a uPVC downpipe. Windows are typically top-opening timber casement.

The principal southwest elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace line, which is itself set slightly back from the larger shop buildings at its south-eastern end. The front yard is modest in size, with some established box hedging enclosed by a smooth render dwarf wall topped with hooped metal railings and a similar painted metal foot gate to the south-east. A red-tiled path leads from the gate to a six-panelled painted timber door positioned towards the south-eastern side of the façade. The door has a semi-circular glazed section at the top, brass furniture, and a rectangular fanlight above. At first-floor level, two windows align with the ground-floor openings, all with top-opening timber casement windows, giving the façade a regular fenestration pattern.

The northwest elevation is attached to No. 27 Charlemont Square East. The northeast rear elevation, where visible, consists of rock-faced random-coursed stone walling enclosing a yard accessed through a planked painted timber door from the rear access route. A monopitch outbuilding abuts the north corner of the yard boundary walling. At first-floor level there is a top-opening timber casement window at the centre of the elevation, with a later, smaller similar window to its right-hand side. The rear elevation generally retains its original stonework at first-floor level, timber casement windows, and some cast iron rainwater goods; the ground-floor level and yard have whitened walls. A single-storey flat-roof extension has been added to the rear of the building. The southeast elevation is attached to No. 25 Charlemont Square East.

The building retains its external character despite the replacement of the original windows and roof slates, and the addition of the rear extension. Original doors and windows were replaced in 1998, and general improvement works took place around 1985.

SETTING AND GROUP VALUE

No. 26 forms part of Charlemont Square, a formally planned square of 66 buildings in total arranged along the north, west, and eastern sides of a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the south-east. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. To the rear, each dwelling has a generally larger yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling, with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route; rear façades are much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes. Front façades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces. Five larger buildings at the south-eastern end of Charlemont Square East and one at the south-eastern end of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace, the shortest side at only eight houses wide, consists of distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings.

The central area of the square is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at its boundary. A children's playground is located to the south-east, which includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911. Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the south-east of the playground.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates from 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a Mr John Pollock. The site was then known simply as "The Green" but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth — known as Bess — and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, when the first edition Ordnance Survey map was produced, few buildings had been erected: the only significant structures depicted were 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. Richardson later stated that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and deliberately chose a country location near Newry with water power, a surrounding population, and locally cultivated flax. The village was established as a model social experiment, laid out in phases beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson's layout was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic approach led him to bring the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to encourage self-improvement. He provided his workers with recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops at Nos 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to mill workers.

Bessbrook became widely known as a village without the "Three Ps": there was no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists 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 boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took advantage of this by greatly enlarging his factory and increasing his workforce. 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 rose from 73 to 296.

The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. 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 limited to the expansion of the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The Newry Granodiorite used throughout is of high quality and was produced at a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate; the same granite was used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

Charlemont Square was not yet depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year noted that Charlemont Square West — described as "new row" — was the only side of the square to have been completed, though its 26 buildings remained unoccupied. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866, according to the Annual Revisions.

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 containing stipulations regarding the keeping of fowl and pigs — which were not permitted in the living quarters or yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden. Tenants were also bound to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 26 Charlemont Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Thomas Lay, valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by Thomas Mills, a linen weaver employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, and describes it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. The Mills family continued to reside at No. 26 until at least the 1970s, having purchased the property outright in 1968; under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), it was valued at £7 and 10 shillings.

During the 20th century the mill at Bessbrook continued to expand, gaining the Bessbrook Spinning Company international recognition. During the Second World War, mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold to private individuals and firms; the majority of the houses along the square were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. The post-war downturn in the local textile market led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army.

No. 26 was listed in 1981 and was 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 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 in 1895 — which have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. Bessbrook is internationally significant as an early planned mill village, predating both Port Sunlight and Bourneville. At the time of the most recent survey the house continued to be used as a private dwelling.