10 College Square North, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 10 College Square North is a two-storey, two-bay terraced mill workers' dwelling built in approximately 1890, forming part of the northern terrace of College Square in Bessbrook, County Armagh. It was built to designs by an unknown architect, though the work is possibly attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The building is constructed in L-plan form, facing southeast, with a single-storey rear return.

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 area's industrial history reaches back further, to 1761, when a Mr John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on what was then simply known as "The Green." The site was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s records very few buildings at Bessbrook at that time, noting only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

Richardson, a member of the Religious Society of Friends, established the village as a social experiment grounded in Quaker ideological beliefs. 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 stated aim was to avoid the problems associated with a factory population in a large town, and he deliberately chose a rural site near Newry with good water power and a local supply of flax. He brought poor, unqualified and destitute people from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook, hoping to improve their circumstances. The village became famously known as a settlement without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence — a policy that the majority of residents voted to preserve in the 1870s. In place of a public house, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to mill workers. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

The first phase of planned housing began with the laying out of 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 significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when the cutting off of American cotton supplies created increased demand for linen. Richardson expanded his factory and workforce considerably during this period. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook. To accommodate his growing workforce, Richardson had Charlemont Square laid out between 1862 and 1866; between 1861 and 1871 alone, the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296.

College Square was laid out in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890 in response to further expansion of the business. The Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide noted that the mid-1880s were a period of intense building activity in which the earlier ideals of Richardson's plan were re-established with the building of College Square. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, using Newry Granodiorite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This stone was used in the construction of most buildings at Bessbrook and is of notably high quality — the same material was used in building Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. Annual Revisions record that Nos 1–12 College Square North were erected in approximately 1890, making the northern terrace the last row of the square to be completed.

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 containing specific clauses: pigs and fowl were not permitted in the family quarters or yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were allowed in the garden; and tenants were obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 10 College Square North was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr William Walsh and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By the time of the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by Francis Logan, a general labourer whose wife worked as a washerwoman; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of 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 John McCrum.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand and gained international recognition; during the Second World War its workers produced cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of its housing stock until the 1960s, when the post-war downturn in the textile market prompted the gradual sale of properties along College Square to private individuals and firms. This same downturn foreshadowed the eventual closure of the mill in 1972. The McCrum family purchased No. 10 College Square North in approximately 1969 and remained there at least until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), at which time the total rateable value of the house stood at £8.

The building was listed in 1980 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village with a distinct form and character. Bessbrook, including both Charlemont Square (1862–66) and College Square, is considered to be of potential international importance as an early planned mill village, having influenced the later English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning around the world.

EXTERIOR

The building is constructed of generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite walling. Door and window openings have stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick surrounds. The roof is pitched, covered in natural slate, with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The chimney to the southwest has a rectangular section of red brick, rebuilt in rustic brick, with four terracotta clay pots; the chimney to the northeast has four buff clay pots. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; metal guttering is retained to the front southeast elevation.

PRINCIPAL (SOUTHEAST) ELEVATION

The front elevation faces southeast and is flush with the rest of the terrace. It is near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level are positioned directly above the ground-floor openings, all fitted with double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with horns. A modest front garden is enclosed by red brick dwarf walling topped with hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the northeast. A paved path from the gate leads to a painted panelled timber door with two glazed upper panels, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. A window sits to the southwest side of the door.

SOUTHWEST ELEVATION

To the southwest, the building is attached to No. 9 College Square North.

NORTHWEST (REAR) ELEVATION

Access to the rear northwest-facing elevation was limited at the time of survey. Where visible, it consists of a single-storey pitched-roof rear return at the northeast, projecting northwest into an enclosed rear yard. The yard boundary walling is of random-coursed rock-faced local stone with concrete coping and a painted sheeted timber door leading to the yard. The rear elevation shows original stone walling at first-floor level, with a timber sash window to the centre and a diminutive window to the right-hand side (southwest). The rear return has a painted smooth cement render finish and a painted timber fascia. A single-storey outbuilding in the western corner of the rear yard has a flat concrete roof.

NORTHEAST ELEVATION

To the northeast, the building is attached to No. 11 College Square North.

SETTING

No. 10 College Square North is one of twelve similar houses forming the northern terrace of College Square, itself a formally planned late-Victorian square consisting of 53 mill workers' dwellings in total, arranged along the north, east and west sides of a central green area. The square is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. 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, each with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades across the square are generally much altered.

The eastern terrace is composed of 23 dwellings, stepped in groups of six to follow the subtle relief of the site, terminating at its southeastern end with the village's former Town Hall (the old Institute building). The western terrace comprises 18 dwellings, for the most part arranged in pairs in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing; the former school building is located at the southeastern end of this terrace. The northern terrace, of which No. 10 forms part, is the shortest of the three at 12 houses in width; while similar in style to the other terraces, these 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 northwestern section contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at the northwestern boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings occupies the southeastern section. The centre contains an open children's playground, which includes three granite monuments. One of these 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." A 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"; the inscription on the opposite side records that this was the last stone cut from the Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently relocated to its current position in the square, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

MATERIALS

Walling: Newry Granodiorite. Roof: natural slate. Windows: timber sash. Rainwater goods: metal (to front) and uPVC.

CONDITION AND ALTERATIONS

A rendered extension and some modern external finishes detract somewhat from the building's character and heritage value. The rebuilt rustic brick chimney to the southwest is also noted as an alteration.