4 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 4 College Square West is a two-storey, two-bay terraced mill workers' dwelling built in around 1874 from locally quarried Newry Granodiorite stone. The architect is unknown, though the building may have been designed by John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881, who was also responsible for extending the mill. The house follows an L-plan form facing northeast, with a two-storey rear return added in around 2000.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook village was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill near Newry and began building housing for his factory workers. The site had earlier origins: in 1761 a Mr John Pollock had opened the first woollen mill and bleach green there, and the place — then simply called "The Green" — was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. Richardson, influenced by the Quaker urban planning principles of William Penn (who had laid out Philadelphia in the late 17th century), set out to create a model village where his workers could live and work in decent conditions. He famously stipulated that there would be no public house, no pawnshop, and therefore no need for a police presence — the so-called village without the "Three P's." In their place he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and Bessbrook remains without a public house to this day. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863 following the purchase of his brother's shares. The American Civil War (1861–65) created a boom in the local linen industry as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged both his factory and workforce. After Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, Richardson became the principal employer and landowner in Bessbrook. Between 1861 and 1871 the village population rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate this growth. College Square followed in stages between around 1874 and around 1890, a period described in the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide as one of "intense building activity" that re-established the ideals of Richardson's original plan. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The terraces of College Square were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

The stone used throughout Bessbrook — Newry Granodiorite — was quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. It is a high-quality granite that was also used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. The last stone cut from the Bessbrook quarry is commemorated by one of the granite monuments now standing in the central area of College Square.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign a lease agreement that included stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs (permitted only in a dedicated pig-sty and fowl-run in the garden, not in living quarters or yard), and an obligation to send their children to school until old enough for mill work.

The houses along College Square West, including No. 4, were the first to be built: Annual Revisions record nos. 1–12 College Square West from 1874, with nos. 13–18 added by 1877. No. 4 was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Andrew Morrow, at a rateable value of £6. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By the time of the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by Robert John Humphreys, a yarn bundler at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling with six inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) it was valued at £7 10 shillings and occupied by a Mr William Preston.

During the 20th century the Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to expand, gaining international recognition, and during the Second World War mill workers produced cloth for military uniforms. The company began selling its housing in Bessbrook from the 1960s onwards, driven by the post-war decline in the textile market that ultimately led to the closure of the mill in 1972 (after which the mill building was occupied by the British Army). The Preston family purchased No. 4 outright in around 1968; by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value of the building had risen to £12.

No. 4 College Square West was listed in 1981. Bessbrook Conservation Area was designated in 1983 in recognition of the village'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), settlements which have in turn directly influenced town and country planning worldwide.

Architectural Description

College Square is a formally designed late-Victorian square consisting of 53 mill workers' dwellings in total, arranged along three sides — east, north, and west — around a central bowling green, playground, and lawn. The square is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. No. 4 forms part of the western terrace, which comprises 18 similar houses (the full western terrace is listed as a group). The northern terrace, the shortest side of the square, contains 12 houses; though similar in style to the other terraces, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The eastern terrace contains 23 dwellings built in a similar style but with some significant differences in detail; they are stepped in groups of six, respecting the subtle relief of the site, and terminate at their southeastern end with the village Town Hall (the former Institute building). The former school building is located at the southeastern end of the western terrace.

The central area of the square is divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The northwestern section contains a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees along its northwestern boundary. A further lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings sits to the southeast, and an open children's playground occupies the centre of the square. The playground contains three granite monuments. One 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." A 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 recording that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently moved to its current location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Each house in the square is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. Rear yards are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear façades across the square are generally much altered.

The walling throughout is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite, with stepped red brick dressings to jambs, stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The dwellings along the western terrace are grouped in pairs; each pair is symmetrical, with doors grouped to the centre, flanked on opposite sides by single windows at ground-floor level. Each pair is set between raised roof verges in red brick with clay tile coping, rising to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. The line of the verge is continued vertically down each front (northeast) façade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings. Single dwellings at each end of the terrace are unpaired.

The roof is pitched and covered in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The rectangular-section red brick chimney to the southeast (rebuilt in rustic brick) has six terracotta clay pots. The eaves are flush, with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods to the rear (southwest) are generally uPVC; to the front (northeast) they are metal. Half-round guttering discharges to circular-section downpipes. The downpipe to the front northeast elevation is cast iron and is recessed into the walling within the stepped red brick quoins.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern. There are two windows at first-floor level in line with the openings below; all four are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows. At ground-floor level the door has a stepped red brick surround and a gauged brick arch with a flush keystone detail to the head; the window to the southeast side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill. The front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by a dwarf red brick wall topped with hooped galvanised metal railings. A foot gate hung on slim posts is located to the northwest. A paved path from the gate leads to a painted four-panel timber door, the upper half of which contains a semi-circular light with three radial glazing bars, with brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above.

Southeast Elevation

To the southeast the building is attached to No. 3 College Square West.

Southwest (Rear) Elevation

Access to the rear southwest elevation is limited. Where visible, it consists of a two-storey pitched-roof rear return at the southeast projecting to the site boundary at the southwest. There are no openings to the southeast or southwest sides of the return. The southwest elevation has a single reduced bay to the northwest of the rear return, with a timber sash window with a stone cill visible at first-floor level, and two similar windows with concrete cills to the northwest side of the rear return, also at first-floor level. The rear elevation and rear yard boundary wall are finished generally in smooth cement render. The yard boundary wall has a painted sheeted timber door leading from the rear access route into the rear yard.

Northwest Elevation

To the northwest the building is attached to No. 5 College Square West.

Condition and Alterations

A large rendered extension to the rear and some modern finishes detract from the building's character and heritage value. An extensive renovation carried out in around 2000 included the construction of the two-storey kitchen and bathroom extension to the rear. The chimney to the southeast has been rebuilt in rustic brick. Rear façades are generally much altered across the square. Notwithstanding these changes, the front northeast façade retains its well-designed proportions and modest detailing, and the use of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite to the principal elevation contributes strongly to the unique sense of identity and place that characterises Bessbrook.

Materials

Walling: Newry Granodiorite. Roof: Fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. Windows: Timber sash. Rainwater goods: Cast iron to front northeast elevation; metal and uPVC elsewhere.