4 Maytown Terrace, Fountain St., Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

4 Maytown Terrace, Fountain Street, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay late Victorian terraced dwelling, built around 1896 as housing for workers at Bessbrook Mill. The architect is unknown. It forms part of a row of seven broadly identical houses — Maytown Terrace — which front onto Main Street, Bessbrook, set back from the road behind a wide tarmac public footpath. Numbers 1 to 6 of the terrace were built simultaneously around 1896; the adjoining No. 7 was added in the early 20th century. The row has group value as a coherent historic ensemble.

Construction and External Appearance

The walls are built of randomly coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite — a locally quarried granite stone — with stepped red brick dressings to the door and window jambs, stone sills, and square-headed gauged-brick openings to all doors and windows. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate, with angled black clay ridge tiles. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. There are two rectangular-section red brick chimneys: the one to the northeast has been rebuilt in rustic brick and carries two black clay pots; the one to the southwest has two buff clay pots. Cast iron rainwater goods are used to the front elevation, with uPVC half-round guttering and circular-section downpipes to the rear.

Principal (Northwest) Elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near symmetrical. Both floors follow a regular fenestration pattern, with two windows at first-floor level aligned with the openings below. All windows are double-hung, one-over-one sliding timber sash windows with horns. The painted timber front door opens directly onto the public footpath; it has three vertical panels to its lower half and two glazed sections to its upper half, with brass furniture and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a window to the northeast side of the door.

Northeast Elevation

To the northeast, the building is attached to No. 3 Maytown Terrace.

Southeast (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation faces southeast. To the northeast side there is a reduced bay, with a top-opening timber casement window at first-floor level and a matching uPVC casement window directly below at ground-floor level, both looking into the enclosed rear yard. A two-storey pitched-roof rear return projects from the southwest end of the rear elevation; this return has a two-part side-opening uPVC casement window at first-floor level and a similar window at ground-floor level. To the northeast side of the rear return there is a uPVC door opening into an enclosed concrete yard. The yard boundary walling has a cement render finish and a painted six-panel timber door leading to the rear access route. A modern oil tank is raised and supported on three steel I-beams above the yard. The rear elevation and the rear return are generally finished in painted smooth cement render with slim concrete sills.

Southwest Elevation

To the southwest, the building is attached to No. 5 Maytown Terrace.

Plan Form and Extension

The building is L-plan in form, facing northwest, with a two-storey rear return that was added around 1987 as part of an extensive renovation. This extension provides kitchen and bathroom accommodation. The addition is visible to the rear and detracts somewhat from the building's original character, though the front elevation retains its historic appearance.

Setting

Maytown Terrace sits along Main Street at the eastern end of Bessbrook. The rear facades of the terrace are generally much altered, with most dwellings having lost their original stone rear yard boundary walls. Rear boundaries are defined by a local access route and an area of rough grazing to the southeast.

Historical and Social Significance

No. 4 Maytown Terrace is of considerable local historical and social importance as part of Bessbrook, one of the earliest planned model villages in Ireland, and one whose influence extended well beyond its own boundaries.

The history of industry at the site begins in 1761 when a John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green at a place then known simply as "The Green." The site was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. By the 1830s, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, very few buildings had been erected: the principal structures were Mount Caulfield House, the residence of the Nicholson family, and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village of Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills on the site and began to build housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson, in his own words, "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." Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and according to historian R. Harrison, possessed a "typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation to provide jobs and good working conditions for his employees." His layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for the planning and development of Philadelphia in the late 17th century.

Bessbrook was developed in phases, beginning with the laying out of Fountain Street in the 1840s. The architect of the majority of the village's housing is not known. Richardson's intention was to create a community where workers could live and work in contentment, and his philanthropic approach led him to bring the poor, the unqualified, and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and settle at Bessbrook. The village became well known as a settlement without the "Three Ps" — no Public House, no Pawn Shop, and therefore no need for Police. In place of a public house, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops at Charlemont Square East, and arranged for milk, tea and cocoa to be distributed to his workers. The majority of the population voted to maintain this arrangement in the 1870s, and to this day Bessbrook has no public house. 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 buying out his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) when access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson seized the opportunity to greatly enlarge both his factory and his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the dominant employer and landowner in the area. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to house 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. By the turn of the 20th century the population stood at approximately 4,000.

The Annual Revisions confirm that Nos 1–6 Maytown Terrace were constructed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company around 1896. In that year the rateable value of No. 4 was set at £3, and the property was initially leased by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. Robert Maxwell. By the time of the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by William Roy, a weaver employed at Richardson's factory; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the occupant was a Mr. James Cunningham and the rateable value had risen to £5 and 10 shillings.

During the 20th century the mill at Bessbrook continued to expand, gaining the Bessbrook Spinning Company international recognition. During the Second World War, the mill workers were tasked with producing cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of most of the village's housing until the 1960s, when a post-war downturn in the local textile market prompted the sale of properties to private individuals and firms. The mill itself closed in 1972 and the building was subsequently occupied by the British Army. No. 4 Maytown Terrace was purchased outright by a Mr. Samuel Bradley around 1959; by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), its rateable value stood at £8.

The building was listed in 1982 and included within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's historical significance as a planned mill village with a 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 famous English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bournville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which have in turn "directly influenced town and country planning all over the world."