22 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

22 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866, forming part of the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square in Bessbrook, County Armagh. The listing extends to the house itself, together with its gate, railings and yard walling.

The building is arranged on an L-plan, facing southwest, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return. The walls are built in generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate), with red brick dressings. Door and window openings have stepped red brick surrounds and gauged-brick cambered heads, though the window heads have generally been squared off and the surrounds partly covered with bands of painted smooth cement render. Stone cills are painted. The pitched roof is covered in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney stack to the northwest with a single black clay pot. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course, and the rainwater goods are generally half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes, with metal rainwater goods to the main building and uPVC to the rear return.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is near-symmetrical, set flush with the main terrace and narrowly set back from the larger shop buildings at the southeastern end of the row. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth-rendered dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings, with a similar painted metal foot gate to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a six-panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade, with a semi-circular glazed section at the top, black iron door furniture, and a rectangular fanlight above. A window sits to the northwest side at ground floor level. At first floor level, two windows align directly above the ground floor openings. All windows are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with horns and exposed sash boxes.

To the northwest the building is attached to No. 24 Charlemont Square East, and to the southeast it is attached to No. 21 Charlemont Square East.

The rear elevation faces northeast and is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone boundary walling around a concrete yard, accessed through a planked painted timber door from the rear access route. At ground floor level on the southwest end of this elevation there is a wider-than-standard side-opening casement window with a replacement concrete cill. At first floor level, centrally on the rear elevation, there is a double-hung sliding timber sash window. From the northwest end of the rear facade, the single-storey rear return projects northeast to the yard boundary wall. Its flat roof is felt-covered. The southeast side of the rear return has a panelled painted timber door with two glazed sections to the top half, a top-opening timber casement window to its right, and a separate boiler house to the right of that window, accessed from the yard through a painted planked timber door. The boiler house is narrowly set back and appears to incorporate an earlier outbuilding that retains its original planked timber door; the pattern of remaining limewash suggests it originally had a monopitch roof. The rear elevation generally has a smooth rendered finish with concrete cills and timber casement windows at ground floor level, while the original stone walling is retained at first floor level. The rear return has a smooth cement render finish and uPVC rainwater goods.

No. 22 is one of twenty-seven similar two-storey houses which, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings at the southeastern end of the row, form the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square. The square as a whole comprises 66 buildings in total — dwellings and shops arranged along the east, north and west sides of a central green — and is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. Each house along the east and west terraces 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 on the east and west sides are stepped in groups of two dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. Rear yards are generally enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route, though the rear facades have been much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes. The five larger buildings at the southeastern end of the eastern terrace (and one at the southeastern end of the western terrace) 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 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.

The building retains its external character despite the replacement of the original roof slates, internal fittings and front door.

Historical context

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates from 1761, when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a John Pollock. The site was then known simply as "The Green" but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s records few buildings at Bessbrook at that time — chiefly Mount Caulfield House (the residence of the Nicholson family) and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later wrote that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and so chose a country district near Newry with water power, a dense rural population and locally cultivated flax. The village was established as a planned "model village" in several phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson's layout was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. As a member of the Religious Society of Friends himself, Richardson combined pragmatic and altruistic aims: he brought poor, unqualified and destitute people from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to encourage self-improvement. The village became known as one without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police — and in exchange Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops (located 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 the prohibition on alcohol in the 1870s, and to this day there remains no public house at 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 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. 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.

The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. Charles Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work at Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to mill building expansions. 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 this quarry was of sufficiently high quality to be 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 records Charlemont Square West (described as "new row") as the only completed side, 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 at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing various stipulations, including restrictions on keeping fowl and pigs within the family quarters or yard (though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden), and an obligation to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 22 Charlemont Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. John Fox or Foy and valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicts the building in its current layout, which included a tennis ground within the central green. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as occupied by James Smith, a general labourer whose family were employed as reelers by the Bessbrook Spinning Company; it was described at that time as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the occupants of No. 22 changed frequently until 1956, when a Mr. Edward McConnell took possession of the house and remained there until 1970. During the 20th century the mill continued to expand and gained the Bessbrook Spinning Company international recognition; during the Second World War its workers supplied cloth for military uniforms. The company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold to private individuals. The majority of the houses around the square were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, in around 1970. The post-war downturn in the local textile market foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 22 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72).

The house was listed in 1981 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983 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 carefully 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 have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. Bessbrook is therefore internationally significant as an early planned mill village, predating both Port Sunlight and Bourneville by several decades.

Records note that the building underwent extensive renovation around 1980, including the repointing of its stone facade and the installation of cast iron rainwater goods. The current sliding sash window frames were added in 1999. At the time of the second survey the building continued in use as a private dwelling and retained its original Victorian character, despite the addition of the single-storey flat-roof extension to the rear.