17 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 17 Charlemont Square West is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian mid-terrace house, built in around 1862 to designs by an unknown architect. It forms part of the western terrace of Charlemont Square, Bessbrook, County Armagh, and is listed along with its gate, railings and yard walling. The townland is Clogharevan.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building is of L-plan form, facing northeast, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate), with painted red brick dressings. Window and door openings have painted stone cills and stepped painted red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered heads — these have since been formalised and squared off with narrow bands of painted smooth cement render to the surrounds. The roof is pitched, covered in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section replacement red brick chimney to the northwest with a single terracotta clay pot. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods to the front northeast elevation are metal; those to the rear southwest are uPVC — both are half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and flush with the main terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A tarmac path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade, which has two glazed panels to its upper half, painted metal furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a window opening to the northwest side at ground floor level. At first floor level, two windows align with the main entrance door below, following a regular fenestration pattern. Windows throughout are generally double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

To the northwest the building is attached to No. 18 Charlemont Square West, and to the southeast to No. 16 Charlemont Square West. To the rear, where accessible, the yard is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone boundary walling, accessed through a sheeted painted timber door from a rear access route. The rear facade has a smooth cement render finish and a single double-hung sliding timber sash window to the centre of the elevation at first floor level. From the northwest end of the rear facade, a single-storey flat felt-covered-roof return projects southwest to the yard boundary walling, also finished in smooth cement render.

HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

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

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a prominent linen merchant from Lambeg and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later explained that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and deliberately chose a rural site near Newry with water power, a local agricultural population, and flax cultivation nearby (Harrison, p. 50). His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Bessbrook was developed as a planned model village in a number of phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson's approach was philanthropic: he brought the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, aiming to help them improve themselves. The village became famously known as the settlement without the "Three Ps" — no public house, 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, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve these arrangements in the 1870s, and to this day there remains no public house at Bessbrook. Police were not stationed there until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863 Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after purchasing 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 greatly enlarged both his factory and his workforce. In 1865, Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson, making him the principal landowner and main employer in the village. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215 and the number of houses from 73 to 296 (Harrison, pp. 100–101).

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of new workers. Brett describes it as the centrepiece of the new developments at Bessbrook. The 66 buildings — two-storey and two-and-a-half-storey houses along the north, west and eastern sides of an open green — were constructed by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work at Bessbrook in the 1860s, but his role may have been limited to the mill buildings themselves.

The Newry Granodiorite used throughout Bessbrook was produced at a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite is of high quality and was used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

Charlemont Square does not appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year notes that Charlemont Square West — described as a "new row" — was the only completed side of the square, though all 26 buildings remained unoccupied. The remaining sides of the square were 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 containing clauses governing the keeping of fowl and pigs (restricted to outbuildings and garden rather than living quarters), and obliging them to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work (Bassett; Harrison, p. 16). Each house had a garden or yard of approximately one-eighth of an acre.

No. 17 Charlemont Square West was constructed in around 1862. Griffith's Valuation records it as initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John Best, valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though its value remained unchanged until the 1950s. The building is shown on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906 in its current layout, with a tennis ground depicted within the central green. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by Joseph Weir, a general labourer, and describes it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the house was occupied by the Ryan family; in 1956 John McParland took possession and remained there 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 produced cloth for military uniforms. The Company retained ownership of the Charlemont Square houses until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals and firms. The majority were purchased in around 1970 by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer. The sale of the properties was driven by the post-war downturn in the textile market, which preceded the mill's closure in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 17 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970, at which point its rateable value was increased to £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

The house was listed in 1981. In 1983 it was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated 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 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 in turn "directly influenced town and country planning all over the world."

Around 1980 No. 17 underwent an extensive renovation that included reslating of the roof, repointing of the stonework, and the addition of cast iron rainwater goods. The current sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999. The original roof slates have been replaced and a flat-roofed extension added to the rear, both of which detract somewhat from the building's character, though the house otherwise retains its Victorian appearance and continues in use as a private dwelling.

SETTING

No. 17 forms part of Charlemont Square West, one of three terraces — east, west and north — arranged around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. 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 road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. To the rear, each dwelling has a larger 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.

The northern terrace is the shortest at only eight houses wide, but these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground floor level with dwellings above. The front facades of the east and west terraces are nearly uniform in character.

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.