6 College Square North, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 6 College Square North is a modest two-storey, two-bay terraced mill workers' dwelling built in approximately 1890, constructed of locally quarried stone. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The house forms part of a row of twelve similar dwellings making up the northern terrace of College Square, itself a formally planned late-Victorian square comprising 53 mill workers' dwellings in total, arranged on three sides around a central green and primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The building is listed to include the house, gate, and railings, and sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook as a settlement dates to 1761, when a Mr John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site, then known simply as "The Green." The name Bessbrook is said to derive from Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The village was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, and his approach to village planning was influenced by the work of William Quaker Penn, responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson intended Bessbrook as a social experiment: workers were provided with good living conditions to foster positive employer-employee relations, and he brought in the poor and unqualified from the surrounding countryside to work and live there. The village became known as a place without the "Three Ps" — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and consequently no need for Police — with Richardson instead providing recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributions of milk, tea, and cocoa to workers. The majority of residents voted to preserve the no-alcohol ordinance in the 1870s, and no public house exists in Bessbrook to this day. Police were not stationed there until the turn of the 20th century.

Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863, and took advantage of the boom in linen trade caused by the American Civil War (1861–65) — which cut off access to American cotton — to greatly expand his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house the resulting influx of workers; the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 in 1861 to 2,215 by 1871, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. College Square was developed in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890, with the factory significantly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The northern terrace, of which No. 6 forms a part, was the last row to be built, erected in approximately 1890. The bowling green at the southern end of the square was added in 1911. The terraces were constructed by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

The stone used throughout Bessbrook, including College Square North, is Newry Granodiorite, quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite is of notable quality and was used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. Each house in the village was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants signed an agreement that included stipulations about keeping fowl and pigs out of family quarters and yards (though pig-sties and fowl-runs were permitted in the garden), and were obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

College Square and the earlier Charlemont Square are considered to be of international significance as part of one of the earliest planned mill villages, begun in the 1840s. Their development is understood to have influenced the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Cadbury's Bourneville (1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning across the world.

Individual History of No. 6

Annual Revisions record that No. 6 College Square North was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John White, valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The occupancy changed frequently over subsequent decades. Under the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by Thomas Martin, employed at Richardson's factory as a power loom tenter; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling comprising 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 still recorded as occupied by Thomas Martin. During the Second World War, mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company began selling its housing stock in the 1960s as a post-war downturn in the local textile market foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972. The Martin family remained at No. 6 until approximately 1968, when the property was purchased outright by a Mr James Nesbitt. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the rateable value had been increased to £8. The building was listed in 1980. In approximately 1981 the house underwent extensive renovation, including the construction of its two-storey rear return. In approximately 1998, the windows and entrance door to the front façade were replaced.

Exterior Description

The building is of L-plan form, facing southeast, with a two-storey rear return added in approximately 1981. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite, with stepped red brick dressings to jambs, stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The roof is pitched, covered in natural slate with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the southwest with three buff clay pots and a single terracotta clay pot, and a similar chimney to the northeast with 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 — though this decorative eaves course to the front facade of all dwellings along College Square North is now masked by modern electrical wiring. Rainwater goods are generally half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; at the front southeast elevation there is galvanized guttering discharging to a uPVC rectangular hopper and uPVC circular-section downpipe. uPVC rainwater goods are present to the rear northwest 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 aligned with ground-floor openings, all with top-opening uPVC casements. A modest-sized front yard is paved and enclosed by red brick dwarf walling with a concrete coping topped by hooped painted metal railings. A similar foot gate hung on slim posts is located to the northeast. A paved path from the gate leads to a modern sheeted timber door with a small glazed section to the centre of its top half and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a window to the southwest side of the door.

To the southwest, the building is attached to No. 5 College Square North. To the northeast, it is attached to No. 7 College Square North.

The rear northwest elevation consists of a two-storey rear return at the northeast, projecting northwest to the site boundary. The rear yard to the southwest is partly covered at its southeastern end with a monopitched corrugated perspex roof, and is a single reduced bay in width, with a sheeted timber door leading to the rear access route. The elevation has a top-opening uPVC casement window at first-floor level above the yard and a similar window at ground-floor level looking into the covered area of the yard. The rear return has two windows to its southwest side visible at first-floor level and a four-panelled painted timber door at ground-floor level opening into the rear yard, with a two-part uPVC casement window to the northwest of the door. No openings are visible to the northwest or northeast sides of the return. First-floor openings are generally obscured by an oil tank raised above the yard and resting on three concrete lintels. The rear elevation generally has a roughcast cement render finish, uPVC casement windows, and slim concrete sills.

Setting

No. 6 forms part of College Square North, one of three terraces arranged around a central area now divided into three sections laid to lawn. The northwest section contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings is located to the southeast. An open children's playground occupies the centre of the square and includes three granite monuments. One 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," with an inscription on the opposite side noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently moved to its current location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Each house in the square is set back from the perimeter road and footpath with a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. Rear yards are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route; rear façades are generally much altered. The eastern terrace comprises 23 dwellings stepped in groups of six to respect the subtle relief of the site, terminating at its southeastern end with the village Town Hall (the old Institute building). The western terrace comprises 18 dwellings, for the most part arranged in pairs, built in a similar style but with some notable differences in detailing; the former school building is located at the southeastern end of this terrace. The northern terrace — of which No. 6 forms part — is the shortest in the square at 12 houses in width; while similar to the other terrace dwellings, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings with steeply pitched roofs.

Condition and Integrity

A large rendered extension, uPVC windows, and modern finishes detract somewhat from the building's character and heritage value. The use of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite for the front southeast façade contributes to a distinct sense of identity and place within Bessbrook. The building retains significant group value as part of a formally planned and architecturally coherent square of considerable local, national, and international historical importance.