5 Wakefield Terrace, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 5 Wakefield Terrace is a two-storey, two-bay corner terraced house in painted lined cement render, originally built around 1865 by an unknown architect, then substantially rebuilt, extended and gentrified around 1926. The house has a rectangular plan form facing northeast, with a two-storey rear return added during the 1926 works. It currently serves as a health centre.

The house forms part of a terrace of six similar houses at the southwest end of Fountain Street and the southeast end of Charlemont Square. It sits on a corner site, set back from Church Road to the northwest behind a modest concrete front yard enclosed by dwarf red brick walling topped with painted hooped metal railings replaced around 1989. Two foot gates serve the yard: one hung on a circular-section cast iron post to the southwest, and a similar gate on slim posts to the northeast. The listing extends to include the house, gates and railings.

EXTERIOR

The walling throughout is in lined cement render, painted, with square-headed door and window openings and painted stone cills. The roof is pitched, clad in fibre cement tiles with angled black clay ridge tiles, and there is a valley between the front block and the rear return. Eaves are flush, with a painted timber fascia. Rainwater goods are generally metal half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the southeast with a single buff clay pot, and a similar chimney on the northwest gable of the rear return.

Principal (northeast) elevation: This is flush with the rest of the terrace. All windows are double-hung 3/3 sliding timber sash with horns and reduced-height top sashes. The window to the northwest side of the ground floor door has a gabled window directly above it at first floor. The square-headed door surround is painted, with plain rectangular-section pilasters and a moulded entablature. The door itself is a painted panelled and fielded timber door with four panels; the square-headed fanlight above is now blocked. The door opens directly onto the public footpath. Raised render quoins are present to the northwest, with a modern metal street sign reading 'Wakefield Terrace' attached.

Southeast elevation: The building is attached here to No. 4 Wakefield Terrace.

Southwest elevation: The building is attached here to No. 6 Wakefield Terrace.

Northwest (side) elevation: This faces Church Road. The elevation consists of two similar-sized two-storey gabled blocks with a valley between them. The block to the northeast has raised render quoins to the northeast and a modern vent to the centre covered with metal mesh. The block to the southwest has two double-hung 3/3 sliding timber sash windows with reduced-height top sashes at first floor, and two similar windows directly below at ground floor. The ground floor window to the southwest is reduced in width and has a door to its southwest — a painted panelled and fielded timber door with four panels and a square-headed fanlight above. The windows on this elevation have modern galvanised metal screens fitted. The walling here is in lined cement render with painted stone cills.

SETTING

The terrace of six dwellings occupies a gently sloping corner site at the southeast end of Charlemont Square. Nos. 1–5 face northeast towards Fountain Street and are fronted by the public footpath; Nos. 2–5 share a continuous ridge line. No. 6 faces northwest onto Church Road and is set back narrowly from the footpath. The rear yards are open to neighbouring dwellings and are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling to the southwest. A section of original yard walling facing southeast is rendered, with a tall pier with a concrete capping adjacent to No. 1 Wakefield Terrace.

The village fountain, from which Fountain Street takes its name, stands to the northeast of No. 1. It is square in plan, built in granite ashlar with cast iron spouts to each side and a finial to the top. It is surrounded by a rectangular area enclosed by dwarf granite walling topped with painted metal railings, and the stone trough remains in place.

No. 5 has considerable group value as part of the terrace of six (all of similar design and detailing), and also shares group value with the neighbouring terraces on Charlemont Square and Lakeview. The house retains good proportions and modest detailing and maintains its character despite alterations to some external elements.

HISTORY

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates to 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a John Pollock. The site was known as 'The Green' but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. The first edition Ordnance Survey map records that few buildings had been erected at Bessbrook by the 1830s, with only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills of note.

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson, in his own words, had 'a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town, so on looking around, fixed upon a place near Newry … with water power and a thick population around, and in a country district where flax was cultivated in considerable quantities.' Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, and 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. According to the historian Harrison, Richardson possessed a 'typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation to provide jobs and good working conditions for his employees.' He is said to have brought the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, in the hope of encouraging them to improve themselves. Bessbrook became famous as a village without the 'Three Ps': by Richardson's stipulation there was no public house and no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In place of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed 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 at Bessbrook; police were not stationed there until the turn of the 20th century.

Bessbrook was established as a model village in phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate an influx of new workers. In 1863 Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after purchasing his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce. When Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, Richardson became both the principal employer and the main landowner at Bessbrook. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Each house was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing specific stipulations: the keeping of fowl and pigs was not permitted in the parts of the property occupied by the family or in the yard (though a pig sty and fowl run were permitted in the garden); and tenants were obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

The terrace on the site of Nos. 1–6 Wakefield Terrace was originally known as Fountain Place. It had not been built at the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1862 but was first recorded in the Annual Revisions of 1866. Early 20th-century photographs show that the buildings on the sites of Nos. 1 and 6 were originally single-storey cottages, while the buildings between formed a two-storey terrace. The building that preceded No. 5 was originally valued at £4 and 10 shillings and was occupied by a Ms. Bridget Lappin. By the 1911 Census, the site was occupied by Edward Boyce, an unemployed labourer whose family worked at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of three rooms. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicted the house as a simple end-terrace structure with no outbuildings.

In 1926 the Annual Revisions valuer recorded that the houses along Fountain Place were in the process of being rebuilt, though it is not certain whether this involved complete reconstruction or refurbishment. The row was renamed Wakefield Terrace, and following the works No. 5 was valued at £7. The Annual Revisions Town Plan records that the house was extended to the rear at this time by the addition of its current two-storey return, connecting it with the adjoining No. 6. The rebuilt house was initially leased by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Samuel Henderson.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the rateable value of No. 5 was raised to £12, and the house was occupied by a number of tenants during this period. During the Second World War, the mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when post-war decline in the local textile market led to properties being sold to private individuals and firms. This same downturn foreshadowed the mill's closure in 1972, after which the mill building was occupied by the British Army. Around 1964, No. 5 was purchased outright by a Dr. P. J. Ward, who partially converted the building into a doctor's surgery and waiting room. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the total rateable value of the site stood at £41.

No. 5 Wakefield Terrace was listed in 1981 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983, which recognised Bessbrook's significance as a planned mill village with a distinct form and character. The Conservation Area Guide notes that the carefully planned development of Bessbrook influenced the design of the English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), villages which 'have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world.' Few alterations have been made to the house since its listing, although the gates and railings to Church Road were replaced in 1989.