19 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

19 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866, forming part of the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square in Bessbrook, County Armagh. The listing covers the house together with its gate, railings and yard walling.

The building is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality local granite), with red brick dressings, painted stone cills, and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered door and window openings — though the window heads are generally now squared off, with bands of painted smooth cement render to the surrounds. 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 is collected by half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes — metal rainwater goods to the southwest elevation and uPVC to the rear northeast.

The front elevation faces southwest and is near-symmetrical, set flush with the main terrace and narrowly set back from the larger shop buildings at the south-eastern end. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth render dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings and a similar painted metal foot gate to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the façade, with two glazed panels to the upper half and painted metal door furniture. The fenestration is regular: two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings, all fitted with double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

To the northwest the building is attached to No. 20 Charlemont Square East. To the southeast it is attached to No. 18 Charlemont Square East.

The rear elevation faces northeast and is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone boundary walling to a concrete yard, accessed through a planked painted timber door from the rear access route. At ground-floor level on the southwest end of this elevation there is a wider-than-standard side-opening casement window with a replacement concrete cill. At first-floor level, centrally positioned, is a double-hung sliding timber sash window. From the northwest end of this façade, a single-storey rear return projects northeast to the yard boundary walling. The rear return is finished in smooth cement render with a flat felt-covered roof. The southeast side of the rear return has a painted flush timber door with a glazed top half, a top-opening timber casement window to its right, and a separate boiler house to the right of that window, accessed from the yard through a painted flush timber door. Generally the rear elevation has a smooth rendered finish with concrete cills and timber casement windows at ground-floor level, while the original stone walling is retained at first-floor level. The rear return is finished in smooth cement render throughout, with uPVC rainwater goods.

No. 19 is one of twenty-seven similar houses which, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings to the southeast, make up the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square. In total the square comprises 66 buildings arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. The terraces to the east and west are stepped in groups of two dwellings, respecting the subtle relief of the site. The front façades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces. Five larger buildings at the southeast end of Charlemont Square East and one at the southeast end of Charlemont Square West carry traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at only eight houses wide, though its buildings are distinctly larger, two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. The central area of the square is laid to lawn, 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. Each house in the square is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling and hooped metal railings, with a larger rear yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling and a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear façades across the square are much altered with various extensions of different shapes and sizes.

The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. It has been suggested that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work at Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings.

Bessbrook itself was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg and a member of the Religious Society of Friends, purchased one of the derelict mills at the site and began building housing for his factory workers. The origins of the settlement are older: industry in the area dates from 1761 when the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a Mr. John Pollock. The site had simply been known as "The Green" but was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s records few buildings at Bessbrook — chiefly Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

Richardson established Bessbrook as a model village in several phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. His layout was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning and development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's aim, in his own words, was to avoid "be[ing] responsible for a factory population in a large town" and instead to fix 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." He brought the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to encourage them to improve themselves. Bessbrook became known as a village without the "Three P's" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In place of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at numbers 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. 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), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce during this period. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the main employer and principal landowner at Bessbrook by the mid-1860s. 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, with the number of houses rising from 73 to 296.

Charlemont Square was not depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year noted that Charlemont Square West (captioned "new row") was the only side of the square to have been completed, though all 26 buildings along its length remained unoccupied. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866 according to the Annual Revisions. Each house was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and possessed between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing stipulations regarding the keeping of fowl and pigs — these could not be kept in the parts of the house occupied by the family or in the yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden. A further binding clause required tenants to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

The Newry Granodiorite used in the construction of the square was quarried locally at a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate. Granite from Bessbrook Quarry is of high quality and was used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool.

No. 19 Charlemont Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Saunders Aiken and valued at £5 and 10 shillings. The occupants of the house changed frequently over the following decades, though its value remained unaltered until the 1950s. The building was depicted on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Bessbrook in 1906 in its current layout. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911 the house was occupied by Patrick Rowan, a general labourer whose family were employed as reelers and spreaders by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The census building return described the house as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the house was occupied by Matthew McCamley; in 1947 it passed to a Ms. Annie Short, whose family remained at the address until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century the mill at Bessbrook continued to expand, and during the Second World War mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals and firms. The majority of the houses along the square were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, in around 1970. The sale of property at Bessbrook was necessitated by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972. No. 19 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

The house was listed in 1981 and 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. Charlemont Square and Bessbrook are recognised as internationally significant: the carefully planned development of the village is considered contemporary with, and influential upon, the famous English model villages of 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.

Around 1980 No. 19 underwent a renovation during which new cast iron rainwater goods were installed and its stone façade repointed. The current sliding sash window frames were added in 1999. The building retains its original Victorian external character despite the replacement of the original roof slates, the replacement of the front door, and the addition of the single-storey flat-roofed rear extension. At the time of the most recent survey the building continued in use as a private dwelling.