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

18 Charlemont Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This 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 of mill workers' dwellings arranged around a central green in the planned village of Bessbrook. The listing covers the house itself together with its gate, railings, and yard walling. The building sits within the Bessbrook Conservation Area.

Historical and Social Context

Bessbrook's origins lie in 1761 when a Mr. John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on a site then known simply as "The Green." The settlement 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, very little had been built there beyond Mount Caulfield House — the residence of the Nicholson family — and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

The village was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a prominent 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 nearby. In his own words, Richardson "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's layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning and developing Philadelphia in the late 17th century. His approach combined pragmatic and altruistic intentions: by providing workers with good standards of living, he hoped to build positive relationships between employer and employee, and encouraged people from the surrounding countryside — including the poor, the unqualified, and beggars — to work and live at Bessbrook and improve their circumstances.

Bessbrook is widely known as a village without the "Three P's": Richardson stipulated there would be no public house and no pawn shop in the settlement, removing the perceived need for a police presence. In exchange, he provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, a number of well-stocked shops at numbers 1–5 Charlemont Square East, and had milk, tea, and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The policy proved effective — the majority of the population voted to preserve it in the 1870s — and to this day there remains no public house at Bessbrook. A police presence was not established in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

In 1863, Richardson became the sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company after purchasing his brother's shares. The local linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) as access to American cotton was cut off; Richardson responded by greatly enlarging the factory and increasing his workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson both the principal employer and principal landowner in Bessbrook by the mid-1860s. Between 1861 and 1871, the population of Bessbrook rose from 637 to 2,215, and the number of houses from 73 to 296.

Charlemont Square was laid out between 1862 and 1866 to accommodate the influx of new workers, and Charles Edward Brett identifies it as the centrepiece of Bessbrook's expansion. The architect is not known with certainty, though 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, though 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.

The Bessbrook Conservation Area was designated in 1983 in recognition of the village'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 later English model villages at Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville — developed by the Cadbury family in 1895 — which "have directly influenced town and country planning all over the world." As a planned mill village begun in the 1840s, Bessbrook is therefore of international significance.

Each house in Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement containing a number of stipulations: they were obliged to keep fowl and pigs out of the quarters occupied by the family and out of the yard, though a pig-sty and fowl-run were permitted in the garden. Tenants were also required to send their children to school until they were old enough for mill work.

History of No. 18

Number 18 Charlemont Square West was constructed around 1862. Griffith's Valuation of that year recorded Charlemont Square West — captioned "new row" — as the only completed side of the square, though each of its 26 buildings remained unoccupied at the time. The Annual Revisions record that the house was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. William Tole and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades, though the valuation remained unaltered until the 1950s. The building is shown on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1906 in its current layout. The 1911 Census of Ireland records that the house was occupied by George Cherry, employed by the Bessbrook Spinning Company as a power loom tenter, and describes it as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by Thomas McClatchey, who remained at the address until 1970.

During the Second World War the mill workers were tasked with supplying cloth for military uniforms. The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of housing in Bessbrook until the 1960s, when the dwellings around Charlemont Square began to be sold to private individuals and firms. The post-war downturn in the local textile market led eventually to the closure of the mill in 1972, after which the building was occupied by the British Army. The majority of the houses along the square were purchased around 1970 by C. R. Morrow, a local car and farm machinery dealer. Number 18 was purchased outright by Morrow in 1970 and was revalued at £7 and 10 shillings under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72). The building was listed in 1981. Around 1980 it underwent extensive renovation, including reslating of the roof, repointing of the stonework, and the addition of cast iron rainwater goods. The current sliding sash window frames were installed in 1999. At the time of the second survey the building continued in use as a private dwelling.

The building is constructed using local Newry Granodiorite — the same granite used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool, quarried locally on the former Charlemont Estate.

Architecture and Materials

The building is of L-plan form, facing northeast, with a single-storey flat-roofed rear return. It is attached to number 19 Charlemont Square West on its northwest side and to number 17 Charlemont Square West on its southeast side. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite 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 window heads are generally now squared off with painted smooth cement render. The roof is pitched fibre cement with angled black clay ridge tiles. There is a replacement rectangular-section red brick chimney to the northwest, topped by a single terracotta clay pot. The eaves are flush with a red brick corbel course. Rainwater goods are generally uPVC with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes, though a single cast iron downpipe is retained to the southwest elevation.

Principal (Northeast) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and flush with the main terrace. A modest front garden is enclosed by a smooth rendered dwarf wall topped by 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 facade. The door has two glazed panels to its upper half, black iron furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. There is a window opening to the northwest side at ground floor level. The facade has a regular fenestration pattern, with two windows at first floor level in line with the ground floor openings; all windows are double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns and exposed sash boxes.

Rear (Southwest) Elevation

The rear elevation faces northeast and is enclosed by rock-faced random-coursed stone walling to the boundary of a concrete yard, accessed through a sheeted painted timber door from the rear access route. The yard boundary wall facing southwest retains a brick-arched drainage feature towards its western edge. At ground floor level to the southeast end of the elevation there is a wider-than-standard side opening casement window with a replacement concrete cill. At first floor level, centred on the elevation, there is a double-hung sliding timber sash window. From the northwest end of the facade, the single-storey rear return projects southwest to the yard boundary wall; it has a smooth cement render finish and a flat felt-covered roof. The southeast side of the rear return has a painted timber door with a glazed top half and a top-opening timber casement window to its left. The rear elevation generally has a smooth rendered finish, with timber casement windows with concrete cills at ground floor level, uPVC rainwater goods to the rear return, uPVC half-round guttering to the main facade, and a single cast iron circular-section downpipe.

Setting

Number 18 forms part of Charlemont Square West, which together with the east and north terraces constitutes a formally planned arrangement of 66 mill workers' dwellings and shops arranged around a central green. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The east and west terraces are stepped in groups of two dwellings, respecting the subtle relief of the site. Rear yards are generally enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route; rear facades are much altered with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes.

Front facades are nearly uniform along the east and west terraces. Five larger buildings to the southeast of Charlemont Square East and one to the southeast of Charlemont Square West have traditional shopfronts at ground floor level with dwellings above. The northern terrace is the shortest, being only eight houses wide, though these buildings are distinctly larger two-and-a-half-storey paired structures. The central area of the square is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped galvanised metal railings, with some established trees along its boundary. A children's playground is located to the southeast and includes a monument to the installation of electric lighting in 1911; Bessbrook's War Memorial is centrally located to the southeast of the playground.