3 Maytown Terrace, Fountain St., Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

3 Maytown Terrace, Fountain Street, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay late-Victorian mill workers' terraced dwelling, built around 1896 by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to designs by an unknown architect. It forms part of a terrace of seven similar houses, and sits in an L-plan form facing northwest, with a single-storey rear return.

Architectural Description

The walls are built of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite — a rock-faced stone laid in generally random courses — with stepped red brick dressings to the door and window jambs, stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick openings for both doors and windows. The roof is pitched and covered in fibre cement tiles, with angled terracotta clay ridge tiles. There are two rectangular red brick chimney stacks: the one to the northeast carries two terracotta clay pots, while the one to the southwest has a single black pot. The eaves are flush, finished with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods to the front are generally cast metal, with uPVC fittings to the rear; guttering is half-round, discharging into circular-section downpipes.

Principal (Northwest) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near-symmetrical in arrangement. Both ground-floor and first-floor windows align vertically, and all windows are double-hung sliding timber sash with horns and reduced-size top panes. The entrance is a four-panelled painted timber door with brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above, opening directly onto the public footpath. There is one window to the northeast side of the door.

Northeast Elevation

The northeast wall is a party wall, attached to No. 2 Maytown Terrace.

Southeast (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation faces into an open concrete yard. At first-floor level there is a top-opening timber casement window at the centre, and at ground-floor level a three-part timber casement window. To the northeast, a single-storey monopitched roof rear return extends to the southeast boundary. This return has a panelled painted timber door and a top-opening casement window, both on its southwest side, and no other visible openings. Both the rear elevation and the return are finished in cement render.

Southwest Elevation

The southwest wall is a party wall, attached to No. 4 Maytown Terrace.

Setting

Maytown Terrace stands along Main Street, Bessbrook, set back from the road by a wide tarmac public footpath. The rear facades of the terrace are generally much altered, with most of the original stone rear yard boundary walls lost. The rear boundaries are now defined by a local access route and an area of rough grazing to the southeast.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook itself was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. The origins of industry in the area date further back to 1761, when a John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on land then simply known as "The Green." The site was later renamed Bessbrook, combining "Bess" (after Pollock's wife Elizabeth) with "Brook" (from the nearby Camlough River). By the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map in the 1830s, very few buildings had been erected: only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills were recorded.

Richardson laid out the village in several phases, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. He was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. As a member of the Religious Society of Friends himself, Richardson combined pragmatic and altruistic motives: he wished to provide good working conditions and decent living standards for his employees, drawing workers — including the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside — in the hope of encouraging them to improve their circumstances.

Bessbrook is widely known as the village without the "Three Ps": Richardson stipulated that there should be no public house and no pawn shop in the settlement, and consequently no need for a police presence. In their place he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributed milk, tea, and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists 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. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was disrupted. Richardson seized the opportunity to enlarge his factory significantly and increase his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson both the principal employer and the main landowner in the area. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of workers; between 1861 and 1871, the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. By the turn of the 20th century the population stood at approximately 4,000.

Nos. 1–6 Maytown Terrace were constructed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company around 1896 (No. 7 was added in the early 20th century). In that year, the rateable value of No. 3 was assessed at £3, and the Bessbrook Spinning Company initially leased it to a Thomas Preston. By the time of the 1911 Census of Ireland, it was occupied by George Clarke, a local stone cutter whose family were employed at Richardson's factory. The census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), it was occupied by a Wallace Hare, with a rateable value of £5 and 10 shillings. During the Second World War, the mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of most of its housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when post-war decline in the textile market began to force sales. The mill itself closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army. The Hare family purchased No. 3 outright around 1959 and continued to reside there until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the rateable value had risen to £8.

The building retains its external character despite the replacement of original slates with fibre cement tiles, alterations to the original windows, and changes to the rear yard. No. 3 Maytown Terrace was listed in 1982, and the following year Bessbrook was designated a Conservation Area in recognition of its historical significance as a planned mill village with a distinct form and character. The Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide notes that the carefully planned development of the village — including the uniform terraces at Charlemont Square and College Square — influenced the design of the famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bournville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which have in turn directly influenced town and country planning worldwide.

The building has group value with the other six historic dwellings along Maytown Terrace (a row considered together as a unified historic group), and it carries significant local historical and social importance as a tangible product of Bessbrook's development as one of Ireland's earliest and most influential model industrial villages.