20 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

20 College Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

A modest two-storey, two-bay, mid-terrace house built around 1883, forming part of the eastern terrace of College Square. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributed to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The listing extends to the house itself, its gate, railings, and yard walling.

Architectural Character

The house follows a rectangular plan form facing southwest, with a single-storey monopitch extension added to the rear around 1983. Walling is of generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality local granite), with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, painted stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The pitched roof is finished in natural slate with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. Eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. A rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest, rebuilt in rustic red brick, carries two terracotta clay pots. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes, though an original cast-iron downpipe is retained to the front elevation.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the rest of the terrace. A modest front garden is enclosed by smooth rendered dwarf walling topped by painted hooped metal railings, with a matching gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door at the southeast end of the façade; the door has two glazed panels to its upper half, black iron furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. To the northwest of the door is a single ground-floor window. At first-floor level, two windows align with the entrance door and ground-floor window below, giving a regular fenestration pattern across the façade. Windows to the front southwest elevation are double-hung 1-over-1 sliding timber sash windows with window horns; windows to the rear northeast are top-opening timber casements.

Other Elevations and Rear

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 21 College Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 19 College Square East. Access to the rear northeast elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of the single-storey monopitch rear return projecting into the rear yard. A timber casement window is visible at first-floor level to the centre of this elevation, with a smaller window to its northwest. The rear yard boundary is formed by random-coursed rock-faced stone walling, with a painted planked timber door reached by two steps from the rear access route. The original stone walling continues to first-floor level on the rear façade, while the rear return has painted smooth render walling. A flat-roofed outbuilding is visible at the northern corner of the yard.

Setting and Group Value

No. 20 is one of 23 similar houses forming the eastern terrace of College Square, which together with Bessbrook Town Hall (the old Institute building) to the southeast make up the eastern side of the square. College Square is a formally planned late-Victorian arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings in total, disposed along north, west, and eastern terraces around a central bowling green, playground, and lawn, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling and hooped metal railings. The eastern terrace is stepped in groups of six dwellings to respect the subtle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. Rear yards are enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed doorways onto a wide rear access route; rear façades are generally much altered, while front façades are nearly uniform along the eastern terrace.

The northern terrace consists of only 12 houses and, though similar in style, comprises distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey buildings. The central area of the square is now divided into three sections laid to lawn: to the northwest is a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at the northwest boundary; to the southeast is a lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings; and at the centre is an open children's playground containing three granite monuments. The first monument 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," with an inscription on the opposite side noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, recently relocated from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill to its current position, traces the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.

Historical Context

The origins of Bessbrook date to 1761, when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site, then known simply as "The Green." The settlement was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s shows little development beyond Mount Caulfield House and several thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his workers. Richardson, in his own words, "had a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town, so on looking around, fixed upon a place near Newry … with water power and a thick population around, and in a country district where flax was cultivated in considerable quantities." His layout of the village was influenced by the planning work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for developing Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic outlook — described by Harrison as a "typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation" — led him to provide good housing, recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and the distribution of milk, tea and cocoa to workers. Bessbrook became known as a village without the "Three P's": no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. The majority of residents voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day Bessbrook has no public house. 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 boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, enabling Richardson to greatly enlarge his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making him the principal landowner and employer in the area. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house the influx of workers; between 1861 and 1871 the population rose from 637 to 2,215 and the number of houses from 73 to 296. College Square was laid out around 1883 to accommodate further expansion; the mid-1880s were described in the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide as "a period of intense building activity in the village" during which "the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established." The factory itself was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85.

The terraces of College Square were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite from a quarry on the former Charlemont Estate — a stone of sufficiently high quality to have been used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool. The houses were first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1883. Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms; tenants were required by their lease to keep pigs and poultry in the garden rather than in the family quarters, and to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 20 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Robert Caldwell and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings, a valuation that remained unchanged until the 1950s. Occupancy changed frequently in subsequent decades. By 1911 the house was occupied by James Emerson, a machinist employed at the factory; the census building return of that year described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. The Emerson family continued to occupy the house through the period of the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57). During the Second World War, mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. As the post-war decline in the textile market took hold, the Bessbrook Spinning Company began selling off its housing stock in the 1960s; the majority of houses around College Square were purchased by a Mr. George Preston around 1969. The mill closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army. The Emerson family vacated No. 20 in 1969, when it was purchased by a Mr. G. Jones; by the close of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the house had been revalued at £8.

The building was listed in 1981 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983, which recognised Bessbrook's significance as a planned mill village with a distinct form and character. The planned development of Bessbrook is acknowledged as a contemporary precursor to, and influence upon, the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which have directly influenced town and country planning internationally. Around 1983 the house underwent renovation including the construction of the current single-storey rear return. In 1995 the original windows were replaced with the current sliding sash window frames.

Materials: Natural slate roof; uPVC and cast-iron rainwater goods; Newry Granodiorite walling; timber sash and timber casement windows.