9 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 9 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house, built between 1862 and 1866 as part of the planned mill village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The architect is unknown. It forms part of a formally designed square of 66 buildings arranged along the east, north and west sides of a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The listing covers the house itself together with its gate, railings and yard walling.

Architectural Character

The house is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a large two-storey rear return added around 1988. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate and used widely throughout Bessbrook — with painted red brick dressings, painted stone cills, and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered door and window openings, though the door and window heads are now generally squared off with painted smooth cement render. The roof is pitched fibre cement with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest with two buff clay pots. Eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater goods are metal with half-round guttering.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace, which is set back from the larger shop buildings at the southeastern end of the square. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth cement-rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim metal posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a six-panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the façade, with a semi-circular glazed upper section and brass furniture. The façade has a regular fenestration pattern with two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings. Windows to the front northwest elevation are double-hung timber sliding sash with window horns and exposed sash boxes, installed in 1999; rear southeast elevation windows are top-opening timber casements.

Other Elevations and Rear

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 10 Charlemont Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 8 Charlemont Square East. The rear elevation faces northeast and incorporates a single-bay, two-storey pitched-roof return at the southeast, projecting to the rear boundary. A planked painted timber door leads from the rear access route to a narrow L-shaped yard, a single bay in width at its northwest extent, which is covered at first-floor level with corrugated Perspex roofing. There is a back door on the northwest side of the rear return. The rear elevation has a generally smooth cement-rendered finish with a mixture of uPVC and timber top-opening casement windows; the rear return has uPVC side-opening casement windows and smooth render.

Setting and the Wider Square

No. 9 forms part of Charlemont Square East, one of 27 similar two-storey houses which, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings to the southeast, make up the eastern terrace. The square as a whole comprises 66 buildings in total. 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 typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. To the rear, each dwelling generally has a larger yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route; rear façades across the square are much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes. Front façades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces. Five larger buildings at the southeastern end of Charlemont Square East and one at the southeastern end of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at only eight houses wide, though these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central green is now laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at its boundary. A children's playground to the southeast includes a monument to 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 by a John Pollock. The settlement was known simply as "The Green" before being renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s recorded little development at Bessbrook beyond Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village 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 building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later wrote that he "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose Bessbrook for its water power, surrounding population, and local flax cultivation. 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 in phases, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s, and established as a social and philanthropic experiment: Richardson brought workers from the surrounding countryside, providing good living conditions in the hope of fostering positive relations between employer and employee and encouraging self-improvement.

Bessbrook became widely known as a village without the "Three P's" — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore no need for Police — a stipulation maintained by Richardson and supported by a majority vote of the population in the 1870s. In their place, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at the square, and arranged for milk, tea and cocoa to be distributed to mill workers. No public house exists in Bessbrook to this day; police were not stationed there 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), when access to American cotton was disrupted, and Richardson took the opportunity to greatly expand both the factory and the workforce. 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 accommodate the influx of new workers. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Brett describes Charlemont Square as the centrepiece of these new developments. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The Newry Granodiorite used in the construction was quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate; granite from Bessbrook Quarry is of high enough quality to have been used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings.

Charlemont Square was not depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had begun by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year noted that Charlemont Square West (described as "new row") was the only completed side of the square, though all 26 of its buildings remained unoccupied. The remaining buildings around the square were completed and occupied by at least 1866 according to the Annual Revisions.

Each house was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign a lease agreement containing stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs — these were not to be kept in the family quarters or yard, though a pigsty and fowl-run in the garden were permitted — and were also obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 9 Charlemont Square East Specifically

No. 9 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John Hughes and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the property's valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicted the house in its current layout, including a tennis ground within the central green. The 1911 Census records the house as occupied by James Morrow, a local stone cutter whose family worked at Richardson's mill as weavers. The census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. The Morrow family remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the Second World War, Bessbrook mill workers supplied cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals and firms; the majority were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. The sale of properties was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 9 was purchased outright by Lily Morrow in 1968 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72).

No. 9 was listed in 1981. Bessbrook was designated a Conservation Area in 1983 in recognition of its historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct 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, influenced the famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville — developed by the Cadbury family in 1895 — which have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. Bessbrook is therefore considered internationally significant as an early planned mill village.

The two-storey rear return was added around 1988 and new sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999. The building retains its original Victorian external character despite these alterations and the replacement of the original roof slates with fibre cement and the loss of internal fittings. It continues to be used as a private dwelling.