11 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, Co. Armagh, BT35 7AF

11 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house, built around 1862 to designs by an unknown architect. It forms part of Charlemont Square West, the western terrace of a formally planned mid-Victorian square comprising 66 buildings in total arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The listing extent covers the house, gate, railings and yard walling.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook's origins date to 1761 when a John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site, then known simply as "The Green." The settlement was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, the first edition Ordnance Survey map recorded only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills in the area.

The village as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a prominent linen merchant from Lambeg and member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later wrote that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose the Bessbrook site for its water power, local flax cultivation, and rural setting. 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 philosophy 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 recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers.

Bessbrook is famously referred to as a village without the "Three P's": by Richardson's stipulation there was no public house ("Public House"), no pawn shop ("Pawn Shop"), and therefore no need for police ("Police") to be stationed there. The majority of the population voted to preserve these conditions in the 1870s, and to this day there remains no public house in 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 after buying out 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; Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and expanded his workforce in response. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner in Bessbrook by the mid-1860s. Between 1861 and 1871, the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses rose from 73 to 296.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate this influx of workers. Brett describes it as the centrepiece of the new developments at Bessbrook. 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 in Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to expanding the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The houses were constructed in Newry Granodiorite, a locally quarried granite used in the masonry of most buildings at Bessbrook. This stone is 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 quarry was opened on the former Charlemont Estate.

Charlemont Square West (described in Griffith's Valuation of 1862 as "new row") was the first side of the square to be completed, though all 26 buildings along its length remained unoccupied at that date. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866, according to the Annual Revisions.

Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement stipulating conditions regarding the keeping of fowl and pigs (confined to the garden, not permitted within the family quarters or yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run in the garden were allowed), and requiring them to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 11 specifically was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Ezekiel Talbot, valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, but the value remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicted the building in its current layout. The 1911 Census records the house as occupied by John Lee, a general labourer whose entire family were employed at Richardson's factory; it was described at that time as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by a Mr. Fred England, who remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining the Bessbrook Spinning Company international recognition. During the Second World War, mill workers supplied cloth for uniforms. The Company retained ownership of the Charlemont Square houses until the 1960s, when they began to be sold to private individuals and firms; the majority were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. The sale of property at Bessbrook was driven by the post-war downturn in the textile market, which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972 (the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army). No. 11 was purchased outright by the England family in 1968, and its valuation was increased to £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

The building 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. Bessbrook is internationally significant as an early planned mill village: begun in the 1840s, it predates and is considered to have influenced the English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), which in turn "have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world." A two-storey extension was added to the rear of No. 11 around 2001.

Exterior Description

The house takes an L-plan form facing northeast. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite with painted red brick dressings, painted stone cills, and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered door and window openings. The doorway head has been squared off with painted smooth cement render. The roof is pitched fibre cement with angled black clay ridge tiles. A rectangular-section red brick chimney stack to the northwest carries a single terracotta pot. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods are uPVC with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and is flush with the main terrace. A modest gravelled front yard is enclosed by concrete dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a similar foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a six-panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade, fitted with brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above. The painted red brick surrounds to the window and door openings have replacement raised banded concrete pointing. A window sits to the northwest side at ground floor level. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern, with two windows at first floor level aligned with the ground floor openings; all windows are 1/1 double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

Northwest and Southeast Elevations

The building is attached on the northwest to No. 12 Charlemont Square West, and on the southeast to No. 10 Charlemont Square West.

Southwest (Rear) Elevation

Access to the rear elevation is limited. Where visible, it consists of a single-bay two-storey pitched-roof rear return at the southeast end of the elevation, projecting into the rear yard. This return has a painted timber soffit and fascia, and a two-part side-opening uPVC casement window visible at first floor level. A sheeted painted timber door leads from the rear access route into a narrow L-shaped yard, which is a single reduced bay in width at its northwest extent. The rear facades are finished in smooth cement render, with concrete cills and timber top- or side-opening uPVC casement windows. The yard boundary walling has a rough-cast cement render finish.

Setting

No. 11 forms part of Charlemont Square West, one terrace within a planned arrangement of 66 mill workers' dwellings and shops forming a formal square with east, north and west terraces arranged around a central green. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath, with a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings, respecting the subtle relief of the site. Each dwelling generally has a larger rear yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades are much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes. Front facades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces, with five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West having traditional shop fronts at ground floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at only eight houses in width, though these buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. The central area of the square is now 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 southeast and includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911. Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.