Archway, Fountain St., Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

Park Lane Archway, Fountain Street, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This single pointed archway with castellations, granite dressings and metal gates stands between nos. 60 and 61 Fountain Street, Bessbrook. It was built in 1912 to designs by Herbert Dowell, a mechanical engineer at Bessbrook Mill, and was constructed as a memorial to Sophy Richardson, wife of James N. Richardson. The archway spans a tarmacked path known as Park Lane, which runs southeast from Fountain Street towards Bessbrook Mill.

Architectural Description

The front elevation faces northwest onto Fountain Street and consists of a pointed arch with panelled, smooth dressed granite abutments, moulded projecting springers, and a painted roughcast finish to the spandrels. Above the arch, castellated walling rises with splayed coping. A dressed granite keystone bears the inscription "PARK LANE 1912". The inner surface of the arch is finished in painted smooth render with moulded panels, and a painted smooth render band runs along the voussoirs.

Two painted metal gates are hung on the abutments and are stamped "…Dublin". Each gate is composed of vertical iron bars with spearhead finials at the top and at impost level. The bars are more closely grouped from ground level up to the impost, and the top bar follows the curve of the arch. Each gate has a lock with scrollwork decoration at top and bottom. A second, modern set of galvanised metal gates is located further along the tarmacked path to the southeast.

The rear elevation faces southeast and mirrors the front in its principal elements: a pointed arch with panelled dressed granite abutments, moulded projecting springers, painted roughcast spandrels, and castellated walling with splayed coping above. A dressed granite keystone and painted smooth render band to the voussoirs are also present on this elevation.

The arch is constructed with painted roughcast walling and granite dressings throughout.

Memorial Plaques

Two matching rectangular polished white marble plaques with inscriptions in lead lettering are fixed to the separate gables of nos. 60 and 61 Fountain Street, one on each side of the archway.

The plaque on the northeast gable of no. 60 reads:

"PARK LANE WAS CONSTRUCTED A.D. 1912 in LOVING MEMORY OF SOPHY RICHARDSON BY HER HUSBAND. SHE WAS WELCOMED IN 1867, AS A BRIDE BY THE PEOPLE OF BESSBROOK, TO WHOM SHE BECAME MUCH ATTACHED, BUT AMONG WHOM SHE WAS ONLY PERMITTED TO LIVE FOR ABOUT 16 YEARS. NEVER STRONG HERSELF, SHE SYMPATHISED GREATLY WITH ALL WOMEN WORKERS HENCE THIS SHORTENED PASSAGE FROM THE VILLAGE TO THE WORKS, AS A MEMORIAL OF HER."

The plaque on the southwest gable of no. 61 reads:

"THE CONSTRUCTION WAS SUPERINTENDED AND CARRIED OUT BY HERBERT DOWELL A.M.I.M.E, JOHN JACKSON, HEAD MASON; WILLIAM MAGOWAN, HEAD CARPENTER; WILLIAM JACKSON, MASON; JOHN MCCANN, [MASON]; JAMES MCCANN, [MASON]; GEORGE MORRISON, MACHINIST."

The gable of no. 60 has a painted textured render finish; the gable of no. 61 has a painted smooth render finish.

Historical Context

Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill on the site and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. In his own words, Richardson "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." He laid out Fountain Street in the 1840s as the first street of what became a carefully planned model village, with further phases of development including Charlemont Square (laid out between 1862 and 1866) and College Square to follow.

The history of industry at the site predates Richardson's involvement. In 1761 the first woollen mill and bleach green were opened by a Mr. John Pollock. The site was originally known simply as "The Green" but was later renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. The first edition Ordnance Survey map records that few buildings had been erected by the 1830s, with only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills marked.

Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, and his approach to the village was shaped both by Quaker principles and by the planning ideas of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic ambitions led him to bring the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, in the hope of encouraging self-improvement. The village became notable as a settlement without the "Three P's": there was no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In place of a public house, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day there remains no public house in Bessbrook. Police were not stationed in the village 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 access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson took the opportunity to greatly enlarge his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson both the principal employer and the principal landowner. Between 1861 and 1871 the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215 and the number of houses grew from 73 to 296. Each house was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required under 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.

Annual Revisions records show that the site of the archway and Park Lane was previously occupied by a worker's house, occupied by a Ms. Margaret McKee and valued at £3 and 10 shillings, which was demolished around 1912 to make way for the new passage. Park Lane was laid out as a memorial to Sophy Richardson, who arrived in Bessbrook as a bride in 1867 and died in 1886 after living in the village for approximately sixteen years. Although the memorial plaque presents the lane as intended particularly to ease the journey of women workers between the village and the mill, local reminiscences record that it was used by male workers as well.

The archway and Park Lane continued to serve as a shortcut between the village and Richardson's mill until the factory closed and was requisitioned by the British Army in 1972. Park Lane now provides additional pedestrian access to the rear of houses along Fountain Street, though the path towards the historic mill is blocked by the modern galvanised metal gates further along the lane.

Bessbrook is regarded as a forerunner of the famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), which in turn "have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world." The archway was listed in 1981. The Bessbrook Conservation Area, within which the archway sits, was designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct form and character.

Setting

The archway and Park Lane are located within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, on the southeast side of Fountain Street between nos. 60 and 61, close to the main squares of Charlemont Square and College Square. The listing extends to the archway including both marble plaques.