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

7 Maytown Terrace, Fountain Street, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest end-of-terrace, two-storey, two-bay mill workers' dwelling built in around 1930 in a late-Victorian style, constructed as a later addition to an existing row of six similar houses dating from around 1896. It was built to designs by an unknown architect and forms the final house in a terrace of seven (the group as a whole running under a shared heritage designation). The building has an L-plan form facing northwest, with a two-storey rear return.

Architectural character and materials

The house is built of locally quarried Newry Granodiorite, laid in generally random-coursed, rock-faced walling. External detailing is carried out in good quality brick: jambs have stepped red brick dressings, window and door openings have square-headed gauged-brick heads, and there are stone cills throughout. The ground-floor window and door heads to the front elevation are slightly deeper than those on the neighbouring houses further along the terrace. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. Eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

There are two rectangular-section red brick chimneys: the one to the northeast carries three terracotta clay pots; the one to the southwest has no visible pots.

Principal (northwest) elevation

The front elevation is flush with the rest of the terrace and is near-symmetrical, with a regular fenestration pattern: two windows at first-floor level sit directly above two openings at ground-floor level. All windows are top-opening timber casements with horns, reduced-height top panes, and vertical glazing bars. The panelled painted timber front door has two glazed sections to its upper half, a square-headed fanlight above, and brass furniture; it opens directly onto the public footpath. A window sits to the northeast side of the door.

Northeast elevation

The northeast side of the building is attached to the adjoining No. 6 Maytown Terrace.

Southeast (rear) elevation

Access to the rear elevation is limited. Where visible, it includes a top-opening timber casement window at first-floor level to the northeast, overlooking a single-storey mono-pitched extension. The rear yard has a corrugated Perspex roof. A painted sheeted timber door in the boundary wall to the southeast leads to a rear access route. The two-storey pitched-roof rear return projects from the southwest end of the rear elevation to the rear site boundary, and has a paired timber casement window with a slim concrete cill at ground-floor level. The rear elevation, rear return, and boundary walling are generally finished in smooth cement render, with top-opening timber casement windows with vertical glazing bars.

Southwest elevation

The southwest end elevation — forming the end of Maytown Terrace — has a roughcast cement render finish with smooth render quoins. The two-storey front block has a rectangular-section red brick chimney at the roof apex and two top-opening timber casement windows with stone cills at first-floor level. The rear return has a similar window also at first-floor level. There are no openings at ground-floor level on this elevation. The rear return has a painted timber fascia and a natural slate roof.

Condition and alterations

The building retains its external character, although original windows have been replaced and a large two-storey extension has been added to the rear. Rear facades across the terrace as a whole have been much altered, and most dwellings have lost their original stone rear-yard boundary walls.

Setting

Maytown Terrace fronts onto Main Street, Bessbrook, set back from the road by a wide tarmac public footpath. To the rear, the boundary is defined by a local access route, beyond which lies an area of rough grazing to the southeast.

Historical and social context

No. 7 Maytown Terrace sits within a wider story of planned industrial development. The site of Bessbrook was first industrialised in 1761 when John Pollock opened a woollen mill and bleach green there. The place was then simply known as "The Green" and was renamed Bessbrook after Pollock's wife Elizabeth — known as Bess — and the nearby Camlough River. By the time of the first Ordnance Survey in the 1830s, few buildings had been erected, with only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills recorded.

The village as it is known today was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills and began constructing housing for his factory workers nearby. Richardson later wrote that he had "a great aversion to be responsible for a factory population in a large town" and chose the Bessbrook site for its water power, rural setting, and local flax cultivation. His 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. Richardson was himself a member of the Religious Society of Friends and, as recorded by historian R. Harrison, brought "a typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation" to his enterprise, drawing workers from the surrounding countryside — including the poor and unemployed — in the hope that good living conditions would encourage self-improvement.

Bessbrook became widely known as a village without the "Three P's": there was no public house, no pawnshop, and therefore, Richardson argued, no need for a police presence. In place of a pub, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his workers. The majority of the population voted to preserve these conditions in the 1870s, and to this day there is no public house in Bessbrook. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863, Richardson became the 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) as access to American cotton was disrupted, and Richardson responded by significantly enlarging the factory and workforce. When Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, Richardson became both the principal employer and the main landowner in Bessbrook. Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the growing workforce: between 1861 and 1871 alone, the population 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.

Nos. 1–6 Maytown Terrace were constructed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company in around 1896, as recorded in the Annual Revisions. No. 7 was added in around 1930 — it does not appear in the Annual Revisions (which ended in 1929) but is included in the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), where it was valued at £9 and recorded as initially occupied by a Ms. Susan Clarke. The property passed to her daughter, Violet Clarke, in around 1936. Violet Clarke purchased the house outright in around 1961 and continued to reside there at least until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the total rateable value stood at £13.

During the 20th century, Bessbrook Mill continued to expand and gained the Spinning Company international recognition, including producing cloth for military uniforms during the Second World War. A post-war downturn in the textile market led to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. The Bessbrook Spinning Company had begun selling its housing stock to private individuals and firms during the 1960s as a result of these commercial pressures.

No. 7 Maytown Terrace was listed in 1982. It lies within the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of the village'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 celebrated English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which in turn "directly influenced town and country planning all over the world."