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

No. 22 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 Charlemont Square West, one of three terraces enclosing a formal planned square in the model village of Bessbrook, County Armagh. The listing covers the house, gate, railings, and yard walling.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is L-plan in form, facing northeast, with a large two-storey rear extension added around 1985. The walls are built in generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality local granite also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool), with painted red brick dressings throughout. Stone cills are painted, and the door and window openings have stepped painted red brick surrounds with gauged-brick cambered heads, though the window heads are now largely squared off with painted smooth cement render. The pitched roof is clad in fibre cement tiles with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest, now rendered, with two buff clay pots. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course, and rainwater is carried by uPVC half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

Principal (northeast) elevation: The front elevation is near-symmetrical and sits flush with the main terrace. A modest gravelled front yard is enclosed by a concrete dwarf wall topped with plain hooped painted metal railings, with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A concrete path leads from the gate to a panelled painted timber door positioned to the southeast of the façade. The upper half of the door has two glazed panels, each incorporating a single lozenge-shaped piece of coloured glass, with black iron furniture and a square-headed fanlight above. There is one window opening to the northwest on the ground floor and two windows at first-floor level aligned with it, all fitted with 1/1 double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns.

Northwest elevation: The building is attached to No. 23 Charlemont Square West.

Southeast elevation: The building is attached to No. 21 Charlemont Square West.

Southwest (rear) elevation: The rear faces southwest and includes a single-bay two-storey pitched roof rear return at the southeast end, which projects into the rear L-shaped yard. This return has a two-part side-opening casement window at first-floor level and a similar window at ground-floor level, both facing southwest. A sheeted painted timber door is set within a roughcast boundary wall, leading from the rear access route into the narrow L-shaped concrete yard, which reduces to a single bay in width at its northwest extent. Single top-opening casement windows at both first-floor and ground-floor level are located to the northwest of the rear return, along with a square-headed doorway at ground-floor level fitted with a panelled painted timber door with a glazed top half. The rear elevation generally has a rough cement rendered finish, timber top-opening casement windows, and concrete cills. The interior surface of the yard walling is in painted smooth render. The rear return has fibre cement roof tiles, painted timber fascia and soffit, and uPVC rainwater goods.

SETTING

No. 22 forms part of the formally planned Charlemont Square, which comprises east, north, and west terraces of mill workers' dwellings and shops arranged around a central green. Each house is set back from the perimeter public road and footpath behind a modest front yard, typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped with hooped metal railings. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings to follow the subtle relief of the site. To the rear, each dwelling generally has a larger yard enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route; rear façades are much altered with extensions of various shapes and sizes. Front façades along the east and west terraces are nearly uniform. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West have traditional shop fronts at ground-floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest at eight houses wide, though these are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired buildings. The central green is now laid to lawn, enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings with some established trees at its boundary. A children's playground to the southeast contains 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 history of Bessbrook as a settlement dates to 1761 when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on a site then known simply as "The Green." The site was later renamed Bessbrook, combining a form of Pollock's wife Elizabeth's name (Bess) with a reference to the nearby Camlough River (Brook). By the 1830s, the first edition Ordnance Survey map recorded few buildings at the site beyond Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village 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 constructing housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later described his reasoning: he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and sought a country district with water power and local flax cultivation. Influenced by the urban planning work of the American Quaker William Penn — who had laid out Philadelphia in the late 17th century — Richardson laid out Bessbrook in phases, beginning with Fountain Street in the 1840s.

Richardson's approach was both pragmatic and philanthropic. He brought the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping to improve their circumstances. He provided good living standards in exchange for sober conduct, and Bessbrook became famous as a village without the "Three P's" — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore no need for Police. In addition to housing, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Nos. 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and distributed milk, tea, and cocoa to his mill workers. The majority of residents voted to preserve this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day no public house exists in Bessbrook. Police were not stationed at the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863, following the purchase of his brother's shares, Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65), when access to American cotton was cut off, allowing Richardson to expand both his factory and workforce considerably. In 1865, Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson, making him the principal landowner and employer in the area. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of 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 along Charlemont Square 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 expanding the mill buildings. The terraces were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company. The Newry Granodiorite used throughout was quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate.

Charlemont Square does not appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1861, but construction had commenced by 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year recorded Charlemont Square West (described as "new row") as the only side of the square to have been completed, though all 26 buildings along its length remained unoccupied. The remaining sides of the square were completed and occupied by at least 1866, according to the Annual Revisions.

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

No. 22 Charlemont Square West was constructed around 1862 and initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Thomas Costigan, at a rateable value of £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently in the following decades, though the rateable value remained unchanged until the 1950s. The 1906 Ordnance Survey Town Plan depicted the building in its current layout, including a tennis ground within the central green. The Census of Ireland records that in 1911, No. 22 was occupied by Patrick McEnerney, a linen weaver employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company; the building was described as a second-class dwelling of five rooms.

The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) records multiple changes of occupancy between the 1930s and 1970, when a Mr. Samuel Cairns occupied the building. During the Second World War, the mill workers at Bessbrook were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to own housing along Charlemont Square until the 1960s, when the dwellings began to be sold to private individuals. The majority of houses along the square were purchased around 1970 by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer. This sale was driven by the post-war downturn in the textile market, which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972 (the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army). No. 22 was purchased outright by C. R. Morrow in 1970, and its rateable value was increased to £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 within 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 in 1895), which in turn directly influenced town and country planning across the world. Bessbrook is noted as being contemporary with, and a precursor to, Port Sunlight and Bourneville, and is considered internationally significant as an early planned mill village.

The two-storey rear extension was added around 1985. At the time of the Second Survey, the building remained in use as a private dwelling and retained its original Victorian character, notwithstanding the rear extension, replacement of the original roof slates, and some loss of internal fittings.