9 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

9 College Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay, late-Victorian mid-terrace house built around 1883, possibly to designs by John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881, though the architect has not been confirmed. The house forms part of a formally planned square of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged along the north, west and eastern sides of a central green — a rare example of a formally designed Victorian square in the province. The listing extends to the house itself, its gate, railings and yard walling.

Architectural Character

The house follows a rectangular plan, facing southwest, and is built of random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate, also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall, Liverpool). Window and door openings are framed by stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, with painted stone cills and square-headed gauged-brick surrounds. The pitched roof is now covered in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles — the original slates having been replaced — and finished with flush eaves incorporating separate red and buff brick eaves courses, with an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. A rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest carries two terracotta clay pots. Rainwater goods are uPVC, comprising half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes, replacing the original rainwater goods.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the rest of the terrace. It has a regular pattern of fenestration: two windows at first-floor level aligned with the entrance door and a further window at ground-floor level. Windows are generally 1-over-1 double-hung sliding timber sash with window horns. The entrance is a painted planked timber door with painted metal furniture and a square-headed fanlight above containing a single vertical glazing bar. A modest front yard, set to lawn, is enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with a matching gate hung on slim posts to the southeast; a concrete path leads from the gate to the front door.

Rear (Northeast) Elevation

Access to the rear elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of random-coursed rock-faced walling, with a painted planked timber door leading from the rear access route into the rear yard. A single timber sash window is visible at first-floor level at the centre of this elevation, in original stone walling. A flat-roofed outbuilding occupies the southern corner of the yard. The rear yard 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.

Attached Neighbours

To the northwest, the building is attached to No. 10 College Square East. To the southeast, it is attached to No. 8 College Square East.

Setting

No. 9 is one of 23 similar houses forming the eastern terrace of College Square, which together with Bessbrook Town Hall (the old Institute building) to the southeast constitute the eastern side of the square. The terrace to the east steps in groups of six dwellings to respect the subtle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. The northern terrace, the shortest side at 12 houses, is distinctly larger — two-and-a-half-storey buildings. Each house in the square is set back from the perimeter road and footpath by a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings.

The central area of the square is divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. To the northwest is a bowling pavilion and green (added in 1911) enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at its northwest boundary. To the southeast is a lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings, and in the centre is an open children's playground containing three granite monuments. One monument 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 moved to its current location, traces the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Ltd in 1878.

Historical Background

The origins of Bessbrook date to 1761 when a Mr John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green at a site then known simply as "The Green," renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The first Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s shows few buildings at the site, recording principally Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it exists today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his workers. Richardson described his motivation in his own words: "I 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." His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning of Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Richardson established Bessbrook as a social and philanthropic experiment, bringing workers from the surrounding countryside and providing them with good living conditions in the hope of improving their circumstances. The village became known as a place without the "Three P's" — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore no need for Police — a condition that the majority of the population voted to preserve in the 1870s and which, to this day, remains in force. In exchange, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. Police were not stationed at the village until the turn of the 20th century.

Development accelerated during the American Civil War (1861–65), when disruption to American cotton supplies caused a boom in the local linen trade. Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce, and in 1863 became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after purchasing his brother's shares. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner at Bessbrook. The population rose from 637 in 1861 to 2,215 in 1871, and the number of houses from 73 to 296. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate this growth.

College Square was laid out around 1883 in response to continued expansion of Richardson's business, during what the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide describes as "a period of intense building activity in the village" in which "the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established." The factory itself was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The square was named after the Primary School on its western side, erected in 1849. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, using Newry Granodiorite from the local quarry, as had been used for the neighbouring Charlemont Square. Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing clauses governing the keeping of livestock (pigs and fowl were not permitted within the family quarters or yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were allowed in the garden), and obliging them to send their children to school until old enough for mill work.

No. 9 College Square East was first let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr John McMinn and valued at £5 and 10 shillings, at which it remained until the 1950s. The house changed hands frequently over subsequent decades. The 1911 Census of Ireland recorded it as occupied by George Johnston, a yarn dresser employed at the local factory, and described it as a second-class dwelling containing five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by the Forsythe family, still valued at £5 and 10 shillings. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the occupant was a Mr James Bradley and the value had risen to £8.

During the Second World War the mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of its housing until the 1960s, when post-war decline in the textile market made the sale of properties necessary. The majority of the houses along College Square were purchased by a Mr George Preston around 1969, including No. 9, which he bought outright that year. The mill itself closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army.

No. 9 College Square East 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 of Charlemont Square and College Square — is considered contemporary with, and an influence on, the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family in 1895), which have in turn "directly influenced town and country planning all over the world." Bessbrook is therefore regarded as internationally significant as an early planned mill village.