6 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 6 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866, located on the eastern side of Charlemont Square in Bessbrook, County Armagh. The listing extends to the house itself, together with its gate, railings and yard walling.

The house is one of twenty-seven similar dwellings which, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings to the southeast, form the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square. The square as a whole consists of 66 buildings arranged on three sides around a central green, with principal access from Fountain Street to the southeast. The architect is not known with certainty, though C. E. B. Brett has suggested that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work at Bessbrook in the 1860s. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

The building is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a large two-storey rear return added in around 1989. The walls are of generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate, a material also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool — with painted red brick dressings, painted stone cills, and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered door and window openings. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest with two terracotta pots. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater goods consist of metal half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The front elevation faces southwest and is near-symmetrical, sitting flush with the main terrace to the northwest and set slightly back from the larger shop buildings to the southeast. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth cement-rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim square-section posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade; the door has a semi-circular-headed glazed upper panel, brass furniture, a square-headed fanlight above with replacement glazing. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern with two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor entrance. Windows to the front elevation are replacement uPVC top-opening casements with horizontal glazing bars.

To the northwest the building is attached to No. 7 Charlemont Square East. To the southeast it is set back from and attached to the larger No. 5 Charlemont Square East. The rear elevation faces northeast and includes a single-bay two-storey pitched-roof rear return projecting to the rear boundary at the southeast. A planked painted timber door leads from the rear access route into a narrow yard, which is covered at first-floor level with corrugated Perspex roofing and connects to the back door on the northwest side of the rear return. The rear elevation is generally smooth cement-rendered with a mixture of uPVC and timber top-opening casement windows; the rear return has uPVC side-opening casements and smooth render.

The building retains its external Victorian character despite the replacement of the original windows, roof slates and some internal joinery, and despite the addition of the two-storey rear extension. General improvements were carried out in around 1983, and the two-storey rear return was installed in around 1989 to provide additional kitchen space and a bedroom.

In terms of its setting, No. 6 forms part of a formally planned arrangement of mill workers' dwellings and shops. 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. The terraces to the east and west are stepped in groups of two dwellings, reflecting 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 rear facades are much altered with various extensions of different shapes and sizes. Front facades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces. The northern terrace is the shortest at only eight houses wide, though its buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The central area of the square 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 historical and social importance of Charlemont Square is considerable. 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. The area had earlier industrial roots: in 1761 the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a Mr. John Pollock, and the settlement took its name from Pollock's wife Elizabeth — known as Bess — and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, according to the first edition Ordnance Survey map, few buildings existed at Bessbrook beyond Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

Richardson described his motivation in his own words: he 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 work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic approach led him to bring the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to encourage self-improvement. He provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. Bessbrook became known as a village without the 'Three Ps' — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement 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 following the purchase of his brother's shares. The local linen industry experienced a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal landowner and employer in the village. 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.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required under the terms of their lease to keep fowl and pigs out of the family quarters and yard (though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden), and to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

Griffith's Valuation of 1862 noted that Charlemont Square West — referred to as 'new row' — was the only side of the square to have been completed at that date, and that all 26 buildings along its length remained unoccupied. The remainder of the square, including No. 6, was completed and occupied by at least 1866 according to the Annual Revisions. The Annual Revisions record that No. 6 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Ms. Elizabeth Carter and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The value remained unaltered until the 1950s, though occupants changed with frequency. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906 depicted the building in its current layout, and the 1906 plan also recorded a tennis ground within the central green. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by Thomas Feighan, employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company as a flax dresser; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. By the 1930s, when the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland was conducted, the occupant was recorded as a Ms. Eliza Small. Under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the rateable value was increased to £7 and 10 shillings, and the dwelling was then occupied by a Mr. Thomas Mooreland.

During the 20th century Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining international fame for the Bessbrook Spinning Company. During the Second World War the mill workers supplied cloth for uniforms. The company retained ownership of the housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when the properties began to be sold to private individuals and firms; the majority 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 led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 6 Charlemont Square East was purchased outright by a Mr. Jim McCamley in 1970.

The building was listed in 1981 and was 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 one of the earliest planned mill villages in these islands, predating its more famous English counterparts by several decades.