30 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 30 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house, built between 1862 and 1866 as part of the planned mill village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The architect is unknown. The house forms part of the eastern terrace of Charlemont Square, one of twenty-seven similar houses which, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings at the south-eastern end, make up that terrace. The square as a whole comprises 66 buildings arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the south-east.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

The building is of L-plan form, facing south-west, with a large two-storey flat-roofed rear return. The principal walling material is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate), with painted red brick dressings. Window cills are of painted stone, and the door and window openings have stepped red brick surrounds with gauged-brick cambered heads — though these are now generally squared off, with bands of painted smooth cement render applied to the surrounds. The front elevation is near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern: one door and one window at ground floor level, and two windows at first floor level directly above. Windows throughout are uPVC top-opening casements. The rear south-east elevation and rear return are finished in rough-cast cement render.

The roof is pitched and clad in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney stack to the north-west with a single terracotta pot. The eaves are flush, with a red brick corbel course. Guttering to the front south-west elevation is galvanised metal half-round; uPVC rainwater goods are used to the north-east and rear return, discharging to circular-section downpipes.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATION

The front elevation faces south-west and sits flush with the main terrace, which is set slightly back from the larger shop buildings at its south-eastern end. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by a rustic red brick dwarf wall topped by scrolled painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on a square-section metal post to the south-east. A concrete path leads from the gate to a six-panelled painted timber door positioned to the south-east of the facade, above which is a rectangular fanlight.

SIDE AND REAR ELEVATIONS

The building is attached to No. 31 Charlemont Square East on the north-west side and to No. 29 Charlemont Square East on the south-east side. The rear north-east elevation is only partially visible. A two-storey flat-roofed rear return projects north-eastward into the rear yard, with a painted timber soffit and fascia. The remains of a monopitch-roofed outbuilding are visible to the north-east of the rear return, abutting the boundary walling. Access to the narrow L-shaped rear yard is via a planked painted timber door set within rough-cast cement rendered boundary walling leading from the rear access route. At first floor level, there is a single window to the rear return facing north-west and a further window at first floor level on the north-east elevation, to the north-west of where the rear return projects.

SETTING

No. 30 forms part of Charlemont Square East within a formally planned arrangement of 66 mill workers' dwellings and shops. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings, respecting the subtle relief of the site. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath with a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. To the rear, generally larger yards are enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades are much altered with extensions of various shapes and sizes. Front facades along the east and west terraces are nearly uniform. Five larger buildings at the south-eastern end of Charlemont Square East and one at the south-eastern end of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at eight houses wide, but these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central green is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings, with established trees at its boundary. A children's playground to the south-east incorporates a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911, and Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the south-east of the playground.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The village of Bessbrook takes its name from Elizabeth (Bess) Pollock, wife of John Pollock, who opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site in 1761, with the nearby Camlough River providing the "Brook" element of the name. At that time the area was simply known as "The Green." By the 1830s, the first edition Ordnance Survey map recorded few buildings at Bessbrook beyond Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it stands today 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 (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory 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." The village was laid out in phases, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson's approach to planning was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Bessbrook was conceived as a social experiment — a model village in which workers could live and work in contentment. Richardson's philanthropic approach led him to bring the poor, unqualified and destitute from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, with the aim of encouraging self-improvement. The village became widely known as one without the "Three P's": no public house, no pawn shop, and consequently no need for police. In place of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, 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 Bessbrook has no public house. Police were not stationed at 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 significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson expanded his factory and workforce accordingly. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and 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, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Brett describes Charlemont Square as the centrepiece of the new developments at Bessbrook. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite from a quarry opened 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 architect of the houses is not known with certainty; Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings.

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 — described as "new row" — was the only side of the square then complete, though all 26 buildings along it remained unoccupied. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866.

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 stipulations regarding the keeping of fowl and pigs (permitted only in a pig-stye or fowl-run in the garden, not in the living quarters or yard), and were obliged to send their children to school until old enough for mill work. Each house had a garden or yard of approximately one-eighth of an acre.

No. 30 Charlemont Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Michael McIlherron at a rateable value of £5 and 10 shillings. The occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1911 Census records the house as occupied by Catherine McGreary, whose entire family were employed as weavers by the Bessbrook Spinning Company; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by the Quinn family, who remained at the address until 1970.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining the Bessbrook Spinning Company international recognition. Mill workers supplied cloth for uniforms during the Second World War. The Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when properties along Charlemont Square 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 ultimately to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 30 Charlemont Square East was purchased outright by Ms Mary E. Harlock in 1970 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72).

ALTERATIONS AND CONDITION

The building retains most of its external character, but the original windows and roof slates have been replaced, and a large two-storey flat-roofed extension has been added to the rear. Cement render has been applied to the rear elevation and to surrounds of door and window openings at the front. The building underwent an extensive renovation in around 1981, which included repointing of its stone façade.

SIGNIFICANCE

No. 30 Charlemont Square East 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. The Conservation Area Guide notes that the 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 recognised as internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, predating both Port Sunlight and Bourneville by several decades.