4 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

4 College Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay, mid-terrace house built around 1883 as part of the planned expansion of Bessbrook village. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributed to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The house forms one of twenty-three similar dwellings that make up the eastern terrace of College Square, which together with Bessbrook Town Hall to the southeast constitutes the east side of a formally planned late-Victorian square. The square as a whole comprises 53 mill workers' dwellings in total, arranged along its north, west and eastern sides around a central bowling green, playground and lawn. It is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast.

The building takes an L-plan form facing southwest, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return to the northeast added around 1994. The walls are constructed in generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite — a granite quarried from the former Charlemont Estate — with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, painted stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. These window openings now have narrow painted smooth cement render surrounds. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The chimney to the northwest is rectangular in section, built in red brick, with a half-round coping and a single terracotta clay pot. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is near-symmetrical, sitting flush with the rest of the terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth cement-rendered dwarf walling topped by painted timber fencing, with a foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled, painted timber door at the southeast end of the facade. This door has two glazed panels to its upper half, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. A window sits to the northwest side of the elevation. The fenestration follows a regular pattern: two windows at first-floor level align with the main entrance door and ground-floor window below. All windows are now top-opening uPVC casements throughout.

To the northwest the house is attached to No. 5 College Square East, and to the southeast it is attached to No. 3 College Square East. The rear elevation faces northeast and has a single-storey rear return extending to the site boundary at northeast and northwest. A planked timber door at the southeast end of the rear facade leads from the rear access route to a narrow concrete yard, where a uPVC door on the southeast side of the rear return leads into the dwelling. The rear return has a single northeast-facing window at ground-floor level with a concrete sill, a window at first-floor level at the centre of the rear elevation, and a later, smaller window to the right (northwest) with a concrete head. The rear elevation generally has a roughcast finish with concrete sills and uPVC casement windows, though original stone walling is retained at first-floor level.

The exterior retains its essential character and massing despite a number of alterations. The original natural slate roof has been replaced with fibre cement tiles, the original front railings have been removed, and the original door, windows and rainwater goods have all been replaced with uPVC. A major renovation around 1994 involved replacing all windows and doors, repointing the exterior stonework, and installing new railings to the front. An interior alteration around 1981 included the installation of new ceilings throughout. The single-storey flat-roofed rear return was added around 1994.

The house sits within the broader setting of College Square, where each dwelling 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 eastern terrace is stepped in groups of six dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. Rear yards to each dwelling are enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades are generally much altered, while the front facades along the eastern terrace are nearly uniform. The northern terrace contains only twelve houses and, while similar in style, these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey buildings. The central area of the square is divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. To the northwest is a bowling pavilion and green, enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at the northwest boundary. To the southeast is a lawn similarly enclosed by hooped metal railings. In the centre is an open children's playground, which 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 noting 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 Company Ltd in 1878.

Bessbrook was founded as a model village 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. Richardson, a member of the Religious Society of Friends, was influenced in his village layout by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's stated intention was to avoid responsibility for a factory population in a large town, choosing instead a country district with water power, a thick local population and nearby flax cultivation. He established Bessbrook as a social experiment, providing good living standards, recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and the distribution of milk, tea and cocoa to his workers. The village is widely known as one without the "Three Ps" — no public house, no pawnshop, and consequently no need for a police presence — a principle upheld by majority vote of the population in the 1870s and maintained to this day, with police not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

The local linen industry experienced a significant boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off. Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce, and Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the main employer and principal landowner at Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of 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. College Square was laid out around 1883 in response to continued expansion of Richardson's business. The mid-1880s were a period of intense building activity in the village, during which the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite from the local quarry, a high-quality granite also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool.

Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing stipulations about keeping fowl and pigs — these had to be kept in a sty and fowl-run in the garden and not in the family quarters or yard — and included a binding clause requiring tenants to send their children to school until old enough for mill work.

No. 4 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. William McCourt and valued at £5 and 10 shillings, at which it remained until the 1950s. The occupants changed frequently over subsequent decades. By 1911 the Census of Ireland recorded the house as occupied by Robert John Magowan, a winding master at Richardson's factory. 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 building remained valued at £5 and 10 shillings and was occupied by a Mr. Stanley Magowan. During the Second World War, mill workers at Bessbrook were tasked with supplying cloth for uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the housing until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals; the majority of houses along the square were purchased by a Mr. George Preston around 1969. 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. 4 College Square East was purchased outright by the Magowan family in 1967, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value of the building stood at £8.

The house was listed in 1981. Bessbrook was designated a Conservation Area in 1983 in recognition of its 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 famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville, developed by the Cadbury family from 1895, all of which have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. Bessbrook is thus regarded as internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, begun in the 1840s, and contemporary to these later celebrated examples.