14 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, Co. Armagh, BT35 7AF

14 Charlemont Square West is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian mid-terrace house, built around 1862 to designs by an unknown architect. It forms part of the western terrace of Charlemont Square, a formally planned village square in Bessbrook, County Armagh.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is built in an L-plan form, facing northeast. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate), with painted red brick dressings. Window and door openings have painted stone cills and stepped red brick surrounds to gauged-brick cambered heads, though the head of the front door and the first-floor window above it have been squared off with painted smooth cement render. The roof is pitched fibre cement with angled black clay ridge tiles, replacing the original slates during a renovation around 1980. A rectangular-section red brick chimney stack to the northwest carries one terracotta and one buff clay pot. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods to the front northeast elevation are metal half-round guttering, while uPVC half-round guttering discharges to circular-section downpipes at the rear.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATION

The front elevation faces northeast and is near-symmetrical, flush with the main terrace. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth rendered dwarf walling topped by plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim metal posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the facade, which has two glazed panels to its upper half, black iron furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. A window opening sits to the northwest side at ground-floor level. The fenestration follows a regular pattern, with two windows at first-floor level aligned with the ground-floor openings; all windows are 1/1 double-hung sliding timber sash with window horns and exposed sash boxes, installed in 1999.

SIDE AND REAR ELEVATIONS

The building is attached at the northwest to No. 15 Charlemont Square West and at the southeast to No. 13. Access to the southwest-facing rear elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of a single-bay two-storey pitched-roof rear return projecting into the rear yard at the southeast. This return was added around 1988 and has a painted timber soffit and fascia, with single two-part timber casement windows to both ground and first-floor levels facing southwest, and a further two-part timber casement window visible to the northwest side of the return at first-floor level. The rear elevation generally has a rough cement-rendered finish with timber top- or side-opening casement windows and concrete cills. A sheeted painted timber door in the random-coursed rock-faced stone boundary walling leads from the rear access route into the narrow L-shaped yard. The yard boundary walling retains a brick-arched drainage feature and supports a modern uPVC oil tank on metal supports at its western point.

SETTING

No. 14 forms part of Charlemont Square West, one side of a planned formal square comprising 66 buildings in total — mill workers' dwellings and shops — arranged along the north, west, and east sides of a central green, 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 by hooped metal railings. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings, following the subtle relief of the site. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West carry traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at eight houses wide, though these buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. Rear facades across the square are much altered, with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes; rear yards are enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with square-headed door openings onto a wide rear access route. The central green is now laid to lawn, enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with established trees along its boundary. A children's playground to the southeast includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911, and Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The origins of Bessbrook date to 1761, when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on a site then known simply as "The Green." It was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (Bess) and the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, the settlement comprised little more than Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village as it stands today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg and a member of the Religious Society of Friends, purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later explained that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and deliberately chose a rural location near Newry with water power and local flax cultivation. He laid out Bessbrook as a model village in phases, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s. His planning philosophy was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's philanthropic intentions led him to bring the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, aiming to improve their circumstances and encourage new habits. Bessbrook became known as a village without the "Three Ps" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence — a stipulation Richardson enforced while providing his workers with recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributions of milk, tea, and cocoa. The majority of the population voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and no public house exists in Bessbrook to this day; police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of workers that followed the boom in the local linen industry during the American Civil War (1861–65), when restricted access to American cotton greatly increased demand for linen. Between 1861 and 1871, Bessbrook's population rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses grew from 73 to 296. In 1863, Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company following the purchase of his brother's shares. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner in the village by the mid-1860s.

The architect of the Charlemont Square terraces is not known with certainty. Charles Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work in Bessbrook in the 1860s, though his role may have been confined to the expansion of the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company using Newry Granodiorite from a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate. This granite was used in the masonry of most buildings in Bessbrook and was of sufficiently high quality to be used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool.

Charlemont Square West — recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1862 as "new row" — was the first side of the square to be completed, though all 26 buildings along its length remained unoccupied at that date. The remainder of the square was completed and occupied by at least 1866. Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required under the terms of their lease to keep the premises in accordance with a number of stipulations, including restrictions on keeping fowl and pigs within the family's quarters or yard (though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden), and an obligation to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

No. 14 Charlemont Square West was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Alexander Irwin and valued at £5 10 shillings. The occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unchanged until the 1950s. By 1911, the Census of Ireland records that the house was occupied by Jane Smith, employed as a washer woman, and described the building as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. The Smith family continued to reside there until 1939, when the house was taken over by James Owens, who remained until 1970.

During the 20th century, the Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to expand and gained international recognition, with mill workers supplying cloth for military uniforms during the Second World War. The post-war decline in the textile market led the company to begin selling its housing stock in the 1960s. The majority of the houses along Charlemont Square were purchased around 1970 by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, including No. 14, which was increased in value to £7 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72). The mill itself closed in 1972 and was subsequently occupied by the British Army.

No. 14 Charlemont Square West was listed in 1981. Bessbrook was designated a Conservation Area in 1983 in recognition of its 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 from 1895), which "have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world."

ALTERATIONS

Around 1980, the house underwent an extensive renovation that included reslating of the roof, repointing of the stonework, and installation of cast iron rainwater goods. A two-storey rear return was added around 1988. The current sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999.

The listing covers the house, gate, railings, and yard walling.