8 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

No. 8 College Square West is a stone-built, two-storey, two-bay terraced dwelling constructed around 1874, forming part of the western side of College Square in the planned mill village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributable to John Hardy, civil engineer and architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company from 1881, who was responsible for the later extension of the mill. The building has a rectangular plan form facing northeast and is listed along with its gate, railings and boundary walling.

Origins and Historical Context

Bessbrook itself was founded as a model village by John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, who purchased a derelict mill on the site in 1845 and began building housing for his factory workers. The site had earlier origins: in 1761 a Mr. John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green there, and the place — then simply known as "The Green" — was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The First Edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s recorded very few buildings on the site, with only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills depicted.

Richardson's layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson was himself a member of the Religious Society of Friends and, in his own words, had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town," choosing instead a rural site near Newry with water power and a flax-growing hinterland. His philanthropic approach led him to bring the poor and unqualified from the surrounding countryside to live and work at Bessbrook in the hope of improving their circumstances. Bessbrook became famously known as a village without the "Three P's" — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore no Police. In place of alcohol, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute (a separate listed building), well-stocked shops at Charlemont Square East, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and there remains no public house at Bessbrook to this day. 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 purchasing his brother's shares. The local linen industry benefited from a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65) when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the main employer and principal 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 had been laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the first wave of new workers; College Square followed in stages between approximately 1874 and 1890, driven by continued expansion of Richardson's business. The factory was greatly extended and modernised in 1884–85. The Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide described the mid-1880s as "a period of intense building activity in the village" during which "the earlier ideals of the plan were re-established with the building of College Square."

The terraces along College Square were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The stone used throughout is Newry Granodiorite, quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite is of high quality — the same material was used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool. The houses along College Square West were constructed between approximately 1874 and 1877: the Annual Revisions first recorded nos. 1–12 College Square West in 1874, with nos. 13–18 added by 1877.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and had between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs (permitted in a garden pig-sty or fowl-run, but not in the family quarters or yard), and were under obligation to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work. Each house possessed a garden or yard of approximately one eighth of an acre.

No. 8 College Square West was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Charles Ewan and valued at £6. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by Mary McGaffin, whose son William worked at the mill as a damask weaver; the census building return described the house as a second-class dwelling of six inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the building was valued at £7 10s and remained in McGaffin family occupation. During the Second World War, mill workers were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the post-war downturn in the textile market prompted sales to private individuals and firms, foreshadowing the closure of the mill in 1972 (the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army). George Preston purchased No. 8 outright around 1969 and leased it to a Mr. Charles Wilson. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the total rateable value had risen to £10. The building was listed in 1981 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area designated in 1983. An extensive renovation including internal alterations and repairs was carried out around 1992.

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 from 1895), which have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world. College Square itself, alongside the earlier Charlemont Square, could be considered of international importance as part of one of the earliest planned mill villages in these islands.

Group Value and Setting

No. 8 is one of 18 similar houses forming the western terrace of College Square (a formally designed and planned late-Victorian square that is a rare occurrence in the province), and has strong group value with the other historic buildings in its setting. College Square as a whole consists of 53 mill workers' dwellings arranged on three sides — east, north and west — 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 garden, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings, with a rear yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling opening onto a wide rear access route. The eastern terrace comprises 23 dwellings built in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing; they are stepped in groups of six to respect the subtle relief of the site, and terminate at their southeastern end with the village Town Hall (the former Institute building). The northern terrace is the shortest in the square at only 12 houses wide; although similar in style to the other terraces, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. 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 area to the northwest has a bowling pavilion and green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at its northwestern boundary; a lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings lies to the southeast; and an open children's playground occupies the centre. 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 ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Architectural Description

The dwellings along College Square West are built of generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite with stepped red brick dressings to door and window jambs, painted stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The dwellings are grouped in pairs along the terrace; 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 copings, rising to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. The line of each verge continues vertically down the front northeast facade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings. The roof is pitched and covered with fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The rectangular-section chimney to the southeast is of red and buff brick, with recessed panels of buff brick, a raised corbel course of red and buff brick below a decorative chimney cap, and two terracotta pots visible. 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 — though this decorative eaves course to the front facade is now masked by modern electrical wiring. Rainwater goods are generally metal, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; the downpipe to the front is recessed into the stepped red brick quoins. Numerous television aerials detract from the overall setting.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern: two windows to first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings. All windows are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash with horns. The ground floor has a stepped red brick surround and gauged brick arches with a flush keystone detail to the head of the door; the window to the southeast side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill. A modest front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped painted metal railings, with a similar foot gate hung on slim posts to the northwest. A paved path from the gate leads to a panelled painted timber door with two glazed panels to its upper half, painted metal furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above.

Southeast Elevation

The southeast elevation is attached to No. 7 College Square West.

Southwest (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation faces southwest into an enclosed yard. The yard boundary walling is of random-coursed rock-faced stone with rounded coping and a painted sheeted timber door leading from the rear access route to a covered area of the yard. The door opening has a replacement brick head. There are also two original small red brick openings — possibly vents for original outbuildings — along the top half of the boundary wall. The rear elevation retains original stone walling at first-floor level with painted stone walling at ground-floor level, making it one of the few houses along the terrace to retain original walling and detailing to this facade. Two equally spaced timber sash windows with stone cills are at first-floor level. The window at the southeast has a similar window directly below at ground-floor level. The window to the northwest has both a door and a diminutive window below it: a painted flush timber door with a glazed top half and a square-headed fanlight above, and a diminutive window at waist height to the northwest of the door with a side-opening timber casement and a painted stone cill. The rear yard has a quarry tile floor finish. A mono-pitched modern block outbuilding to the southwest has a sheeted painted timber door, a corrugated metal roof, and a section of clear corrugated Perspex roofing extending to the northwestern yard boundary.

Northwest Elevation

The northwest elevation is attached to No. 9 College Square West.

Interior

The building retains much of its original plan form. Unlike many of its neighbours along the terrace, it has not been extended or significantly altered to the rear, and retains some original internal joinery, though some modern finishes detract somewhat from its character. It is one of the few houses along the terrace to preserve elements of the original design and detailing — particularly to the rear elevation — where many neighbouring properties have been altered beyond recognition through large extensions and inappropriate alterations.