18 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

18 College Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a two-storey, two-bay end-of-terrace dwelling built in approximately 1877 for mill workers, forming part of the western terrace of College Square in the model village of Bessbrook. It is constructed of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite stone and was built to designs by an unknown architect, though the most likely candidate is John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881, who was also responsible for extending the mill. The house is listed along with its gate, railings and boundary walling, and sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983.

Architectural Description

The house is set out on an L-plan, facing northeast, with a two-storey rendered rear return added in approximately 1987. It forms one of 18 similar houses making up the western terrace of College Square, itself a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged on three sides around a central bowling green and playground, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast.

The walling throughout is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite. Dressings to door and window jambs are in stepped red brick, window cills are painted stone, and the door and window openings are square-headed with gauged-brick arches. Dwellings along the terrace are grouped in pairs, each pair symmetrically arranged with doors grouped to the centre, flanked on opposite sides by single windows at ground floor level. Each pair is set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping, rising to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. The line of the verge is continued vertically down each front facade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings.

The roof is pitched and covered in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles and flush eaves. The eaves detail consists of a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above — though this decorative eaves course is now masked by modern electrical wiring along the terrace. The rectangular-section chimney to the southeast, rebuilt in rustic red brick, is in red and buff brick and carries six terracotta clay pots. Rainwater goods to the front (northeast) elevation are generally cast iron, while uPVC is used to the rear; half-round guttering discharges to circular-section downpipes, with the front downpipe recessed into the stepped red brick quoins.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and near-symmetrical in its fenestration. There are two windows at first floor level, positioned directly above the ground floor openings. All windows are opening timber casements. At ground floor level, the door surround features a stepped red brick surround and a gauged brick arch with a flush keystone detail to the head; the window to the southeast side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill. A modest front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by a dwarf red brick wall topped with painted hooped metal railings. A foot gate hung on slim posts is positioned to the northwest, and a paved path leads from the gate to a painted sheeted timber door with a square-headed fanlight above.

Southeast Elevation

To the southeast the building is attached to No. 17 College Square West.

Southwest (Rear) Elevation

Access to the rear southwest elevation was limited at the time of survey. Where visible, it has a top-opening timber casement window at first floor level to the southeast, with a stone cill, and a similar window directly below at ground floor level. Both windows look into the enclosed rear yard. A two-storey pitched roof rear return projects from the northwest end of this elevation into the enclosed rear yard. A monopitch-roofed outbuilding is attached to the southwest side of the rear return and abuts the stone boundary wall to the southwest; this outbuilding has a corrugated metal roof. The original yard boundary walling is random-coursed rock-faced local stone. A widened doorway to the southeast has a two-part galvanised sheet metal door leading from the rear access route. The southeast side of the rear return has a timber casement window at first floor level and a similar window at ground floor level, with a door to the northeast side of the ground floor window — a painted flush timber door with a glazed top half. The rear elevation generally has a painted smooth cement render finish with timber casement windows; the windows of the rear return have slim concrete cills.

Northwest Elevation

The northwest elevation forms the end of College Square West. It consists of a two-storey gable to the centre, with the side wall of the rear return extending southwest, and original stone yard boundary walling to the attached outbuilding at the southwest. The front garden to the northeast has a smooth-rendered dwarf wall topped by painted hooped metal railings. The gable and rear return are generally finished in roughcast cement render.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. The village takes its name from a combination of 'Bess', the wife of an earlier mill owner, John Pollock, who had opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site in 1761, and 'Brook', from the nearby Camlough River. The first Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s recorded very few buildings at Bessbrook at that time.

Richardson, a member of the Religious Society of Friends, modelled his village layout partly on the ideas of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. He deliberately chose a rural location, stating that he had 'a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town.' His aim was to create a social experiment in which workers could live and work in contentment, and he brought the rural poor from the surrounding countryside, hoping to encourage self-improvement. Bessbrook became known as a village without the 'Three Ps': there was no public house, no pawn shop, and consequently no need for police. In place of a public house, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute building, well-stocked shops, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and no public house has ever been opened 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. The local linen industry experienced a significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took advantage of this by greatly expanding his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold him the remainder of the Camlough Estate in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of the village rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate this growth.

College Square was laid out in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890 as Richardson's business continued to expand. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide described the mid-1880s as 'a period of intense building activity in the village' in which 'the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established with the building of College Square.' The houses along College Square West were built between approximately 1874 and 1877: the Annual Revisions first recorded Nos 1–12 College Square West in 1874, with Nos 13–18 added to the row by 1877.

The stone used throughout Bessbrook is Newry Granodiorite, quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite was of high quality and was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

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 clauses governing the keeping of fowl and pigs, stipulating that these must be confined to a pig-sty and fowl-run in the garden and not kept in the living quarters or yard. Tenants were also obliged to send their children to school until they were old enough to work in the mill.

No. 18 College Square West was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr William Ewing, valued at £6. The occupants changed frequently over subsequent decades. By the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by John McMullan, employed locally as a commercial clerk; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling with six inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the building was valued at £7 10s and was occupied by a Mr Joseph Robinson.

During the Second World War the mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company began selling its housing stock from the 1960s onwards, driven by a post-war downturn in the textile market that preceded the closure of the mill in 1972. No. 18 College Square West was purchased outright by George Preston in approximately 1969 and leased to a Ms Annie Morrison. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the rateable value of the building had risen to £10.

The house was listed in 1981. The Bessbrook Conservation Area was 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.' Both College Square and the earlier Charlemont Square could be considered of international importance in this context.

In approximately 1981 the house underwent a renovation that included the replacement of its window frames. The two-storey rear return was constructed in 1987.

Setting

No. 18 College Square West forms part of a planned arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings comprising a formal square composed of east, north and west terraces arranged around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. Rear yards are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling, each with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades are generally much altered.

The eastern terrace comprises 23 dwellings built in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing; they are stepped in groups of six to respect the subtle relief of the site and terminate at their southeastern end with the village Town Hall, the former Institute building. The northern terrace is the shortest side of the square at only 12 houses wide; although similar in character to the other terraces, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The former school building is located at the southeast end of the western terrace.

The central area of the square is now divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The area to the northwest contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with some established trees at its northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings is located to the southeast, and an open children's playground occupies the centre of the square. The playground contains 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'; the inscription on the opposite side records that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently relocated to the square, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Numerous television aerials currently detract from the setting of the square.

Condition and Alterations

The addition of a large rendered extension to the rear and some modern finishes detract from the building's character. The window frames were replaced in approximately 1981. The two-storey rear return was added in approximately 1987. The chimney to the southeast has been rebuilt in rustic red brick. The decorative eaves course to the front facade, shared with all dwellings along College Square West, is now masked by modern electrical wiring.