3 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

3 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a two-and-a-half-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced building, constructed between 1862 and 1866, combining a ground-floor shop with a dwelling above. It forms one of five similar commercial buildings at the southeastern end of Charlemont Square East, and sits within a formally planned village square of 66 buildings total — one of the earliest and most significant planned industrial villages in the world.

Architectural Character and Materials

The building is of rectangular plan, facing southwest, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool), with red brick dressings throughout. Window openings have stone cills and stepped red brick surrounds, with gauged-brick cambered heads. The roof is pitched, finished in fibre cement slates, with roll-top terracotta clay ridge tiles. A half dormer window sits on the southwest elevation, and a replacement rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest carries four terracotta pots; both the dormer and the chimney were rebuilt around 1998. Projecting eaves feature a painted timber fascia and soffit. Rainwater goods are generally cast iron, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; guttering to the rear elevation and return has been replaced in uPVC.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation abuts the public footpath directly. At the southeast end of the ground floor, a panelled painted timber door with a glazed upper half opens onto a single stone step, leading to the entrance hall of the private dwelling above. The door has brass furniture, a modern painted metal safety shutter, and a semi-circular arched fanlight above with plain glazing. To the left (northwest) of this door, at ground-floor level, is the painted timber shopfront. The shop entrance, at its northwest end, has a panelled painted timber door with a glazed upper half and a square-headed fanlight with two vertical glazing bars, also now fitted with a modern painted metal safety shutter. Above the shopfront, a narrowly projecting painted moulded timber signboard reads "B. McGinn Family Grocer est. 1968". Below the signboard is a large glazed panel set on replacement dwarf walling and supported by three painted timber corbels on fluted pilasters, with a corbelled painted timber cornice forming the entablature. The facade has a near-regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level and the half dormer at attic level (rebuilt around 1998 to replace a former, less appropriate three-part box dormer). Windows throughout are generally double-hung sliding timber sashes with 2/2 horizontal glazing bars and window horns.

Rear and Side Elevations

The rear (northeast) elevation has two double-hung sliding timber sash windows with vertical glazing bars and metal grills at first-floor level, two skylights in the pitched roof, and a full-width single-storey flat-roofed rear return projecting to the rear yard boundary. The return has a felt roof and a smooth rendered finish, with two concrete steps in the rear access route leading to a blocked doorway at the centre of its northeast end. The ground floor of the rear elevation is finished in smooth cement render, with original stone walling above and some replacement stonework evident at eaves level. The building is attached to No. 4 Charlemont Square East on the northwest, and to No. 2 Charlemont Square East on the southeast.

Setting

No. 3 forms part of Charlemont Square East, itself part of a formally planned arrangement of 66 buildings comprising mill workers' dwellings and shops arranged on three sides around a central green. 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. The terraces to the east and west are stepped in groups of two dwellings, reflecting the subtle relief of the site. Rear yards are generally larger, enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed doorways opening onto a wide rear access route; rear facades are much altered, with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes. The five larger commercial buildings at the southeastern end of Charlemont Square East — of which this is one — have traditional shopfronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above, as does one equivalent building on Charlemont Square West. The northern terrace is the shortest at eight houses wide, though these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central green is now laid to lawn, enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at its boundary. A children's playground to the southeast contains a monument commemorating the installation of electric lighting in 1911, and Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.

Historical Background

The origins of Bessbrook date to 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened at a site then known simply as "The Green" by a Mr. John Pollock. The settlement was renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, the first edition Ordnance Survey map recorded very little built development at the site, noting only Mount Caulfield House (the residence of the Nicholson family) and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a 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 constructing housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later explained that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and had deliberately chosen a rural location near Newry with water power, a local workforce, and flax cultivation in the surrounding area. 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. Richardson's philanthropic approach led him to draw workers from the surrounding countryside, including the poor and unqualified, with the aim of improving their living and working conditions.

Bessbrook became celebrated as a "model village without the Three P's": by Richardson's express stipulation there was to be no public house, no pawnshop, and therefore no need for a police presence. In their place he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops (including those at Nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East), and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of residents 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 after buying out his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65), as the Union blockade cut off access to American cotton, and Richardson expanded both his factory and his workforce accordingly. 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.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house the influx of new workers. The population of Bessbrook rose from 637 in 1861 to 2,215 in 1871, with the number of houses increasing from 73 to 296 over the same period. Brett describes Charlemont Square as the centrepiece of these new developments. The architect of the houses is not known with certainty, though Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook during the 1860s; his role may, however, have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map (1861) does not depict Charlemont Square. Griffith's Valuation of 1862 records that Charlemont Square West (then captioned "new row") was the only completed side of the square, though all 26 of its buildings remained unoccupied at that date. The remaining buildings around the square, including No. 3 Charlemont Square East, 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 stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs (prohibited from the living quarters and yard, though permitted in a dedicated pigsty and fowl-run in the garden), and obliging them to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work. Each house had a garden or yard of approximately one-eighth of an acre.

No. 3 Charlemont Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Michael Boyle at a rateable value of £12. The building, which has had a ground-floor shopfront since its construction, was depicted in its current form on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906. By 1911 it had been subdivided, with the upper two floors occupied by two separate families and the ground floor used as the village post office; the 1911 Census return described it as a second-class property containing ten rooms. By the 1920s the property was solely occupied by a Ms. Mary O'Neill. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), its total rateable value had risen to £16.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when the properties began to be sold to private individuals and firms. The majority of the houses were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. This disposal of company housing was driven by the post-war downturn in the textile market, which ultimately led to the closure of the mill in 1972 (after which the mill buildings were occupied by the British Army). Mary McNeill continued to reside at No. 3 until 1960, when the building was purchased by Ms. Amy Chamber and Pat Shield. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), its total rateable value stood at £27.

The building was listed in 1981 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983, which recognised Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village with a distinct and coherent form and character. The Conservation Area Guide notes that the carefully planned development of Bessbrook — including the uniform terraces at Charlemont Square and College Square — directly influenced the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn have directly influenced town and country planning across the world. Bessbrook is also recognised as internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, predating Port Sunlight by over forty years.

In 1998 the building underwent an extensive renovation, which included the installation of new window frames, the reconstruction of the chimney stack and dormer window, the re-roofing in fibre cement slates, and the installation of the current period-style shopfront. At the time of the second survey, No. 3 Charlemont Square East continued to be used as a private dwelling (with storage) and shop, retaining its original Victorian character despite the addition of the flat-roofed extension to the rear.