14 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

14 College Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay, mid-terrace house built around 1883, forming part of College Square — a formally planned late-Victorian square comprising 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged on three sides around a central green. 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 is listed as part of a group of 23 similar houses forming the eastern terrace of College Square.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular in plan, facing southwest, with two single-storey extensions to the rear. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate), with stepped red brick dressings to the door and window jambs, painted stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. These openings now have slim bands of painted smooth cement render applied to them. The roof is pitched and covered in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. The chimney to the northwest was reconstructed in around 1995 in rectangular-section red brick. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC with half-round guttering discharging to circular section downpipes, though one original cast iron downpipe survives on the front southwest elevation.

The building retains its overall character and proportions, though a number of original features have been replaced: the natural slate roof covering, the front door, the original windows, the boundary railings, and the rainwater goods have all been substituted with modern equivalents, including uPVC windows and doors.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is nearly symmetrical and sits flush with the rest of the terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by replacement painted roughcast concrete render walling topped by painted metal scrollwork railings, with a matching foot gate hung on a square-section post to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door at the southeast end of the facade. The door has two glazed panels to the upper half, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. There is one window to the northwest side of the ground floor. At first floor level, two windows sit in line with the ground floor door and window, giving a regular fenestration pattern across the facade. Windows are generally top-opening uPVC casements.

Rear (Northeast) Elevation

The rear elevation faces northeast and is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone walling to the boundary of a concrete yard, accessed through a planked painted timber door from the rear access route. From the northwest end of the rear facade, a single-storey monopitched rear return projects northeast into the yard, with a narrower flat-roofed block attached and extending to the yard boundary on the southeast side. A smaller flat-roofed boiler house is attached to the northeast. The flat-roofed block has a panelled uPVC door with a glazed top half and a window to its side on the northeast wall, opening onto a portion of the rear yard that is partly covered with corrugated Perspex roofing. The boiler house is accessed from the northwest of the yard through a painted planked timber door. A single first-floor window, reduced in height where it has been interrupted by the monopitched rear return, retains its original stone cill. Generally, the rear elevation has a painted smooth cement rendered finish with concrete cills and uPVC casement windows at ground floor level, while the original stone walling is retained at first floor level.

The building is attached to No. 15 College Square East on the northwest side and to No. 13 College Square East on the southeast side.

Setting and Group Context

No. 14 College Square East is one of 23 houses forming the eastern terrace of College Square. Together with Bessbrook Town Hall (the former Institute building) to the southeast, these houses form the eastern side of the square. The full square comprises 53 dwellings in total — east, north, and west terraces — arranged around a central bowling green, playground, and lawn, primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. The eastern terrace steps in groups of six dwellings to follow the gentle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. The northern terrace is the shortest at 12 houses wide, and although similar in character, its houses are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey buildings.

The rear yard of each dwelling is enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route. Rear facades across the terrace are generally much altered, while front facades remain nearly uniform.

The central area of the square is divided into three sections, all laid to lawn. The northwest section contains a bowling pavilion and green, enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at its northwest boundary; the bowling green was added in 1911. A 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 noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook Quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently relocated to the square, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Historical Context

The development of industry at Bessbrook dates from 1761, when 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 renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, when the first edition Ordnance Survey map was produced, few buildings had been erected at Bessbrook; the principal structures shown were Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began building housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later explained that he "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." Richardson's layout of the village 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 possessed, in the words of one historian, a "typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation to provide jobs and good working conditions for his employees." By providing good standards of living, he aimed to foster positive relations between employer and workforce, and brought the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook in the hope of improving their circumstances.

Bessbrook is famously known as a village without the "Three Ps": Richardson stipulated there would be no public house and no pawnshop in the settlement, and therefore no need for police. In place of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and arranged for milk, tea, and cocoa to be distributed to his mill workers. The arrangement proved effective — the majority of the population voted to preserve this ordinance 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 sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after buying out 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. 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 the principal landowner and employer in Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate 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.

College Square was laid out around 1883 in response to further expansion of Richardson's business. The mid-1880s were described in the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide as "a period of intense building activity in the village" in which "the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established with the building of College Square." The factory itself was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The square was named after the primary school on its west side, erected in 1849. The two-storey houses were built along three sides of an open green intended as a recreational space, with the bowling green at the southern end added later in 1911. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The Newry Granodiorite used in their construction came from a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate — a stone of such quality that it was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

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 containing specific conditions: restrictions on keeping fowl and pigs within the family's living quarters (though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden), and an obligation to send children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 14 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Michael Cosgrove, valued at £5 and 10 shillings — a valuation that remained unchanged until the 1950s. The occupancy of the house changed frequently over the following decades. The 1911 Census of Ireland recorded the house as occupied by Joseph McGaffin, a local blacksmith, and 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 still valued at £5 and 10 shillings and occupied by a Mr Hugh McConnell.

During the Second World War, Bessbrook Mill workers were engaged in producing cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of the housing along College Square until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals and firms; the majority were purchased by a Mr George Preston around 1969. The post-war downturn in the local textile market eventually led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. No. 14 College Square East was purchased outright by the McConnell family in 1968, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) its rateable value had increased to £8.

The house was listed in 1981 and was included within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village. 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), all of which "have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world." Bessbrook is thus considered internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages in these islands. In 1995 the house underwent an extensive renovation which included the reconstruction of the chimney stack and the repointing of the exterior brick and stonework.