1 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Down

No. 1 College Square West is a two-storey, two-bay end-of-terrace mill workers' dwelling, built in around 1874 from locally quarried stone to designs by an unknown architect, though possibly the work of John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. It forms the southern end of a terrace of 18 similar houses making up the western side of College Square, itself a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 dwellings arranged on three sides around a central green. The building is listed in its own right, with the listing covering the house, its railings and gate.

Origins and Historical Significance

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill near Newry and began building housing for his workers. The site had originally been developed from 1761 by a Mr John Pollock, who opened a woollen mill and bleach green there; the name Bessbrook derives from Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s, the area contained little more than Mount Caulfield House and a handful of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

Richardson, a member of the Religious Society of Friends, modelled his village layout in part on the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planned development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. His intention was to create a model community where workers could live and work in decent conditions, free from the social problems he associated with industrial towns. Bessbrook became famous as a village without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence — a stipulation that the majority of the population voted to preserve in the 1870s. In place of these, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. Police were not stationed at Bessbrook until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863, Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65), when the cutting off of American cotton supplies stimulated demand for linen. Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce during this period, and in 1865 purchased the remainder of the Camlough Estate from Lord Charlemont, becoming the village's principal employer and landowner. Between 1861 and 1871, the population of Bessbrook 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 house the influx of new workers.

College Square was developed in stages between around 1874 and around 1890 in response to further expansion of Richardson's business. The mid-1880s were a period of intense building activity, during which Richardson's factory was significantly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The western terrace of College Square, which includes No. 1, was constructed between around 1874 and around 1877; the Annual Revisions first recorded nos 1–12 College Square West in 1874, with nos 13–18 added by 1877. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

The stone used throughout is Newry Granodiorite, quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This is a high-quality granite that was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. The planned development of Bessbrook, including the uniform terraces of Charlemont Square and College Square, is widely considered to have influenced the later English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning internationally. College Square itself represents a rare example of a formally designed Victorian square in the province.

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 clauses, including stipulations about the keeping of pigs and fowl (permitted in a garden sty or run, but not in the yard or living quarters), and an obligation to send children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 1 College Square West was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr William Corkey, at a rateable valuation of £6. The building changed occupants frequently in subsequent decades. By the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by Joseph Trimble, a "preparing master" at the local factory; 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 and 10 shillings, and the Trimble family remained in occupation. By the close of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the rateable value had risen to £10.

During the 20th century, the Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to expand and gained international recognition; during the Second World War, the mill workers were tasked with producing cloth for military uniforms. The company began selling its housing stock in Bessbrook from the 1960s, driven by a post-war downturn in the textile market that ultimately led to the mill's closure in 1972 (the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army). George Preston purchased No. 1 College Square West outright in around 1969 and continued to let it to the Trimble family. The building was listed in 1981 and included within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village.

In 1992 the building underwent an extensive renovation, which included the repointing of its brickwork and stonework, the installation of new window frames, and the construction of the modern two-storey rear return.

Exterior Description

The building is of L-plan form, facing northeast, with a two-storey rear return added in around 1992. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite throughout the principal elevation, with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, painted stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings.

Along the western terrace of College Square, dwellings are grouped in pairs, each symmetrical pair having 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 continues vertically down each front north-east facade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings. As the end dwelling of the terrace, No. 1 is unpaired.

The pitched roof is clad in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest — rebuilt in rustic brick — carries six terracotta clay pots. The eaves are flush, with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above.

At the front north-east elevation, rainwater goods consist of half-round metal guttering discharging to a circular-section cast iron downpipe recessed into the stepped red brick quoins. Rainwater goods to the rear are uPVC.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings. All windows are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash with horns. At ground-floor level, the door surround has a stepped red brick surround and a gauged brick arch with a flush keystone detail to the head; the window to the northwest side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill.

A modest-sized front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by dwarf red brick walling topped with hooped painted metal railings. A foot gate, hung on slim posts, is located to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a painted panelled timber door with two glazed panels to its upper half, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above.

Southeast Elevation

This elevation abuts a public walkway and forms the southeast end of College Square West. It is composed of a two-storey gabled block to the northeast and a two-storey rear return to the southwest, which is attached to the rear yard boundary walling at the southwest end. The finish is generally roughcast cement render with no visible openings.

Southwest (Rear) Elevation

Access to the rear southwest-facing elevation is limited. Where visible, it consists of a single reduced bay to the northwest with a uPVC top-opening casement window at first-floor level, aligned with a similar window at ground-floor level, and a two-storey return to the southeast that projects southwest into an enclosed L-shaped concrete rear yard. The yard boundary walling has a roughcast cement render finish and a painted sheeted timber door leading from a rear access route. The rear return has uPVC fascia; a two-part side-opening uPVC casement window is visible at first-floor level to the southwest side. The elevation generally has a roughcast cement render finish with uPVC casement windows and slim concrete cills. No other openings are visible at first-floor level.

Northwest

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 2 College Square West.

Setting

No. 1 College Square West forms part of a planned arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings comprising a formal square with 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 enclosed by dwarf walling topped with 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 facades are generally much altered.

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

The central area of the square is 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 established trees at the northwest boundary, added in 1911. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings lies to the southeast. An open children's playground occupies the centre of the square and includes three granite monuments. The first 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." The 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, recently moved to the square from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Materials

Roof: fibre cement tiles. Rainwater goods: cast iron, metal and uPVC. Walling: Newry Granodiorite. Windows: timber sash and uPVC casements.