23 Charlemont Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

23 Charlemont Square East is a modest two-storey, two-bay mid-Victorian terraced house built between 1862 and 1866, forming part of one of the most historically significant planned mill villages in Ireland or Britain. The listing extent covers the house, its gate, railings and yard walling.

Architectural Description

The house is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a single-storey monopitch rear return. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate and also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool), with painted smooth render dressings. Stone cills are painted, and square-headed door and window openings have stepped smooth render surrounds. Windows are typically top-opening timber casement. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement slates with angled black clay ridge tiles; there is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The principal southwest-facing elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace line, which is set slightly back from the larger shop buildings at the southeastern end. A modest paved front yard is enclosed by smooth render dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings, with a matching painted metal foot gate to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the façade; the door has an oval-glazed section to the top half and brass furniture, with a rectangular fanlight above containing replacement glazing. A window sits to the northwest side at ground floor level. The first floor has two windows directly above the ground floor openings, all with top-opening timber casement frames. The building is attached to No. 24 Charlemont Square East on the northwest and to No. 22 Charlemont Square East on the southeast.

To the rear, the northeast elevation is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone walling, with some sections of smooth cement render, forming the boundary of a rear yard accessed through a planked painted timber door from the rear access route. A single top-opening timber casement window at first floor level to the centre of this elevation has a stepped red brick surround with painted smooth render to the square-headed opening. The single-storey monopitch rear return projects northeast from the northwest end of the façade to the yard boundary walling. The ground floor of the rear elevation has a smooth rendered finish, while the original stone walling is retained at first floor level; the rear return also has a smooth cement render finish. Rear façades along the square generally are much altered with various extensions of different shapes and sizes.

Setting

No. 23 forms part of Charlemont Square East, one of three terraces — East, North and West — arranged around a central green to form a formally planned square of 66 buildings in total. The square is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. The East and West terraces are arranged in groups of two dwellings stepped to follow the subtle relief of the site. Each dwelling generally has a larger rear yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route.

The eastern terrace comprises 27 two-storey houses of the type represented by No. 23, together with five larger two-and-a-half-storey shop buildings to the southeast (which have traditional shop fronts at ground floor level with dwellings above). The northern terrace is the shortest, being only eight buildings wide, but these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central green is now laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at 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

Bessbrook takes its name from John Pollock, who opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site in 1761. The name combines a reference to his wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) with that of the nearby Camlough River (Brook). The first edition Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s records few buildings at the site; the only significant structures 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 linen merchant from Lambeg and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), purchased one of the derelict mills and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson later explained that he had a strong aversion to responsibility for a factory population in a large town and deliberately chose a rural location near Newry with water power, a local population and flax cultivation nearby. The 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.

Bessbrook was developed as a social experiment and model village in several phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. Richardson's philanthropic philosophy led him to bring the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook in the hope of encouraging self-improvement. The village became famously known as a settlement without the "Three P's": no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for police. In exchange, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Nos 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve these arrangements in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists in Bessbrook. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century. Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenancy agreements included stipulations about the keeping of fowl and pigs (confined to the garden rather than the yard or living quarters), and required tenants to send their children to school until they were old enough to work in the mill.

In 1863 Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after buying out his brother's shares. The local linen industry experienced a boom during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson greatly enlarged both his factory and workforce at this time. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making him by the mid-1860s both the principal employer and the principal landowner at Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of 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.

The architect of the houses is not known with certainty. Charles Brett suggests that John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881, may have carried out some work at Bessbrook in the 1860s, although his role may have been limited to the expansion of the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company.

Charlemont Square was not yet depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year noted that Charlemont Square West (described as "new row") was the only completed side of the square, though all 26 buildings along it remained unoccupied at that date. The remaining buildings around the square were completed and occupied by at least 1866.

No. 23 Charlemont Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr Michael Conway and valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The 1911 Census of Ireland records that the house was occupied by John Kavanagh, a carter whose entire family were employed as spinners and reelers by the Bessbrook Spinning Company; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. The Kavanagh family continued to reside at the property until at least the 1970s.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand, gaining the Bessbrook Spinning Company international renown. During the Second World War the mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings along Charlemont Square began to be sold to private individuals and firms. The majority of houses along the square were purchased by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer, around 1970. The sale of property was necessitated by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which foreshadowed the closure of the mill in 1972; the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army. No. 23 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970 and was valued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72).

The building was listed in 1981 and was included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village and its distinct form and character. 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. Bessbrook is therefore internationally significant as one of the earliest planned mill villages, predating both Port Sunlight and Bourneville by several decades.

NIEA records note that the sliding sash window frames were installed around 1991, replacing the original windows. The front door and roof slates have also been replaced, detracting from the building's original external character, though the house retains its overall Victorian form and the original Newry Granodiorite walling. A single-storey extension has been added to the rear. At the time of the second survey the building continued in use as a private dwelling.