17 College Square East, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

17 College Square East, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a modest two-storey, two-bay, mid-terrace house built around 1883, forming part of College Square East in the planned mill village of Bessbrook. The architect is unknown, though the work may be attributable to John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect to the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1881. The listing covers the house itself together with its gate, railings and yard walling.

Architectural Description

The house is of L-plan form, facing southwest, with a two-storey rear return added around 1988 and a monopitched roof covering the rear yard to the northeast. Walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite (a high-quality granite quarried on the former Charlemont Estate), with stepped red brick dressings to the jambs, painted stone cills, and square-headed gauged-brick door and window openings. The pitched roof is finished in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. The chimney to the northwest has been rebuilt in rustic red brick and carries two terracotta clay pots. The eaves are flush, with separate red and buff brick eaves courses and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above. Rainwater goods to the front southwest elevation are generally metal, with uPVC used to the rear northeast; half-round guttering discharges to circular-section downpipes.

Principal (Southwest) Elevation

The front elevation is near-symmetrical and flush with the rest of the terrace. A modest gravelled front yard is enclosed by hooped painted metal railings with a matching foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A paved path leads from the gate to a painted panelled timber door at the southeast end of the façade. The door has a rectangular glazed light to its upper section, metal furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. A window sits to the northwest side of the ground floor. The façade has a regular fenestration pattern, with two first-floor windows aligned over the ground-floor openings. Windows to the front southwest elevation are double-hung sliding timber sash windows with window horns and granite cills; windows to the rear northeast are timber casements.

Rear and Side Elevations

To the northwest the building is attached to No. 18 College Square East, and to the southeast to No. 16 College Square East. Access to the rear northeast elevation is limited, but where visible it consists of a two-storey pitched-roof rear return projecting into an L-shaped rear yard. The rear yard is now covered by a monopitched corrugated Perspex roof and is a single reduced bay in width at its northwest extent. A single top-opening casement window is visible at first-floor level on the northeast elevation. The rear return has a single timber casement window to the northeast gable at first-floor level. Walling to the rear façade and return is generally smooth cement render with uPVC rainwater goods. The random-coursed rock-faced yard boundary walling has a painted planked timber door opening onto a wide rear access route.

The building retains its overall character despite the replacement of the original natural roof slates and front door, and the addition of the large rear extension around 1988.

Setting and Group Value

No. 17 forms part of a formally planned arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings comprising College Square, which is arranged on three sides — east, north, and west — around a central area now divided into three sections of lawn. To the northwest is a bowling pavilion and bowling green enclosed by painted hooped metal railings, with established trees at its northwest boundary. A lawned area enclosed by hooped metal railings lies to the southeast, and an open children's playground occupies the centre of the square. The playground contains three granite monuments. One records: "Erected A.D. 1911 in respectful memory of George Wright, Head Mason. John McClelland, Head Millwright. Michael Boyle, Flax Buyer. Who each faithfully served the Bessbrook firm for nearly 50 years. Also Robert Ross, Mill Manager. Austin Kennedy, Rougher." A second records: "The garden in memory of James N. Richardson is arranged by his wife as a playground for the children of Bessbrook whom he loved November 1927," with an inscription on the opposite side noting that this was the last stone cut from Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, recently moved to the square from the grounds of Bessbrook Mill, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 through to the Bessbrook Spinning Co. Ltd in 1878.

Each house in the terrace is set back from the perimeter road and footpath behind a modest front yard enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. The eastern terrace is stepped in groups of six dwellings, reflecting the subtle relief of the site. The western terrace is composed of paired dwellings in a similar style. The northern terrace, the shortest at only twelve houses wide, consists of distinctly larger two-and-a-half storey buildings. The rear yard to each dwelling is enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto the wide rear access route; rear façades across the square are generally much altered, while the front façades of the eastern terrace are nearly uniform. Bessbrook Town Hall — the old Institute building — is located to the southeast.

Historical Context

The development of the Bessbrook site dates to 1761, when John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green. The settlement was named after Pollock's wife Elizabeth (known as Bess) and the nearby Camlough River. 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 a derelict mill and began building housing for his workers. Richardson's layout was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Richardson's intention was to create a model village — a social experiment in which workers could live and work in good conditions, free from the pressures he associated with large urban factory populations.

Bessbrook became known as a village without the "Three Ps": there was no public house, no pawn shop, and consequently no need for police. In place of a public house, Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute, well-stocked shops, and distributed milk, tea and cocoa to his workers. The majority of the population voted to maintain this ordinance in the 1870s, and no public house exists in Bessbrook to this day. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863. The linen industry boomed during the American Civil War (1861–65) when access to American cotton was disrupted. Richardson expanded his factory significantly and, following the purchase of the remainder of the Camlough Estate from Lord Charlemont in 1865, became the principal employer and landowner in the village. 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 house the growing workforce.

College Square was laid out around 1883 to accommodate further expansion of the business. The mid-1880s were described in the Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide as a period of intense building activity in which the earlier planning ideals of the village were re-established. Richardson's factory was substantially extended and modernised in 1884–85. The terraces of College Square were built by masons and joiners employed directly by the Bessbrook Spinning Company, using Newry Granodiorite from the local quarry on the former Charlemont Estate — the same stone used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George's Hall in Liverpool. The bowling green at the southern end of the square was added in 1911. College Square takes its name from the primary school on its west side, erected in 1849.

Each house at Bessbrook was owned by the Bessbrook Spinning Company and contained between three and five rooms. Tenants were required to sign an agreement stipulating, among other things, that fowl and pigs were not to be kept in the family quarters or yard (though a pigsty and fowl run were permitted in the garden), and that children must attend school until they were old enough for mill work. Each property had a garden or yard of approximately one-eighth of an acre.

No. 17 College Square East was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Mr. William McClatchey and was valued at £5 and 10 shillings, at which it remained until the 1950s. The occupancy of the house changed frequently over the following decades. The 1911 Census of Ireland recorded the house as occupied by Samuel McConnell, whose family were employed at Richardson's factory; the building was described at that time as a second-class dwelling consisting of five rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the house remained valued at £5 and 10 shillings and was occupied by a Mr. Isaac Scott. During the Second World War, mill workers at Bessbrook were engaged in supplying cloth for military uniforms.

The Bessbrook Spinning Company retained ownership of its housing stock until the 1960s, when the dwellings along College Square began to be sold to private individuals. The majority were purchased by a Mr. George Preston around 1969. The sale of property was driven by the post-war downturn in the local textile market, which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972; the mill building was subsequently occupied by the British Army. No. 17 College Square East was purchased outright by George Preston in 1969, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) its value had risen to £8, with a Mr. Samuel Emerson recorded as the occupant.

The house was listed in 1981 and is 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 — is contemporary with and influential upon the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888) and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), which have directly influenced town and country planning around the world.