7 College Square West, Bessbrook, Co.Armagh

7 College Square West, Bessbrook, County Armagh

This is a two-storey, two-bay terraced dwelling built around 1874 in locally quarried Newry Granodiorite stone. It was designed as workers' housing for the Bessbrook Spinning Company, most likely by John Hardy, a civil engineer appointed as company architect in 1881 who was also responsible for extending the mill. The house forms part of a row of 18 similar dwellings making up the western side of College Square, itself a formally planned late-Victorian square of 53 mill workers' houses arranged on three sides around a central green. The square is primarily accessed from Fountain Street to the southeast. A single-storey flat-roofed rear extension in an L-plan arrangement was added around 1980.

Origins and Historical Significance

Bessbrook was effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813–1891), a Quaker linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased a derelict mill on the site and began building housing for his factory workers. Richardson's layout of the village was influenced by the work of William Penn, the American Quaker responsible for planning Philadelphia in the late 17th century. Like Penn, Richardson approached the project with a combination of pragmatic and altruistic aims: he sought to provide good working conditions and living standards, bringing in workers — including the poor and destitute from surrounding areas — in the hope of improving their circumstances and encouraging self-sufficiency.

Bessbrook became known as the village without the "Three Ps" — no public house, no pawn shop, and therefore no need for a police presence. 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 this arrangement in the 1870s, and Bessbrook remains without a public house to this day. Police were not stationed in the village until the turn of the 20th century.

The industrial origins of the area date to 1761, when a John Pollock opened the first woollen mill and bleach green on the site, then simply known as "The Green." It was renamed Bessbrook in honour of Pollock's wife Elizabeth — "Bess" — and the nearby Camlough River, referred to as the "Brook." By the 1830s, the first edition Ordnance Survey map recorded very little built development: only Mount Caulfield House and a number of thread manufactories and bleach mills.

Richardson became sole owner of the Bessbrook Spinning Company in 1863 following the purchase of his brother's shares. The American Civil War (1861–65) created a boom in the local linen industry as access to American cotton was cut off, and Richardson responded by greatly enlarging his factory and workforce. Lord Charlemont sold the remainder of the Camlough Estate to Richardson in 1865, making Richardson the principal employer and landowner in Bessbrook. Between 1861 and 1871, the population 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 this growth, and College Square followed in stages between around 1874 and around 1890. The factory was substantially extended and modernised in 1884–85.

The houses along College Square West were built using the same Newry Granodiorite used throughout most of Bessbrook, quarried locally from the former Charlemont Estate. This granite was of notably high quality and was also used in the construction of Manchester Town Hall and the steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool. Annual Revaluation records show that numbers 1–12 College Square West were first recorded in 1874, with numbers 13–18 added by 1877.

Bessbrook is recognised as a pioneering example of planned industrial settlement. Its carefully planned development is considered to have directly influenced the famous English model villages of Saltaire (1852), Port Sunlight (1888), and Bourneville (developed by the Cadbury family from 1895), all of which went on to influence town and country planning internationally. Both College Square and the earlier Charlemont Square could be considered of international importance for this reason.

The specific history of number 7 begins around 1874, when it was initially let by the Bessbrook Spinning Company to a Robert Davidson and valued at £6. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By the time of the 1911 Census of Ireland, the house was occupied by Samuel Black, an engine fitter at the local mill; the census return described it as a second-class dwelling with six inhabited rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the building was valued at £7 10 shillings and occupied by a Margaret Johnston. The Bessbrook Spinning Company continued to own the housing until the 1960s, when post-war decline in the textile market — which preceded the closure of the mill in 1972 — forced the sale of its properties. George Preston purchased number 7 outright around 1969, continuing to lease it to the Johnston family. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the rateable value had risen to £10. The house was listed in 1981 and included in the Bessbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1983 in recognition of Bessbrook's significance as a planned mill village.

Exterior Description

The front elevation faces northeast and is flush with the rest of the terrace, presenting a near-symmetrical arrangement of two windows at first-floor level aligned directly above the ground-floor openings. All windows are double-hung 1/1 sliding timber sash windows with horns and exposed sash boxes. The walling is generally random-coursed, rock-faced Newry Granodiorite throughout. Dwellings along the terrace are grouped in pairs, each pair being symmetrical with doors grouped centrally and flanked by single windows at ground-floor level. Each pair is set between raised roof verges of red brick with clay tile coping, which rise to rectangular-section chimneys at apex level. The line of each verge continues vertically down the front facade as stepped red brick quoins, with recessed downpipes flanking each paired set of dwellings. Single dwellings at each end of the terrace are unpaired.

Door and window openings have stepped red brick surrounds to jambs with gauged brick arches and flush keystone detail to the head. The window to the northwest side of the door has flush red brick detailing beneath the cill. Stone cills are present throughout. The panelled painted timber front door has two glazed panels to its upper half, brass furniture, and a square-headed fanlight above. A modest front garden is laid to lawn and enclosed by hooped painted metal railings with a similar foot gate hung on slim posts to the southeast. A paved path leads from the gate to the front door.

The roof is pitched and covered in fibre cement tiles with roll-top black clay ridge tiles. Eaves are flush and detailed with a double red brick course, a single buff brick course, and an alternating red and buff brick corbel course above — though this decorative eaves course is now largely masked by modern electrical wiring along the terrace, with television aerials further detracting from the overall character. Rainwater goods to the front are metal half-round guttering discharging to a circular-section downpipe recessed into the stepped red brick quoins; uPVC goods are used to the rear. The chimney to the northwest is of rectangular section in red and buff brick, with recessed panels of buff brick, a raised corbel course of red and buff brick below a decorative chimney cap, and terracotta clay pots.

To the southeast, number 7 is attached to number 6 College Square West. To the northwest it is attached to number 8 College Square West.

Rear and Side Elevations

The rear elevation faces southwest. It consists of a single-storey L-plan flat-roofed rear return extending along the northwestern side of the yard to a stone boundary wall at the southwest, with a monopitched corrugated perspex roof covering the remainder of the yard to the southeast. The ground floor of the rear elevation and the rear return are finished in painted smooth cement render. Two three-part timber casement windows with stone cills are visible in the original stone walling at first-floor level. At ground floor, a timber casement window with a slim concrete cill faces into the covered yard. To the southeast side of the rear return, a flush painted timber door opening into the covered yard has a glazed top half, a square-headed fanlight above, and a top-opening timber casement window to the southwest side of the door. The rear yard boundary wall is of random-coursed rock-faced local stone, with a painted sheeted timber door leading from the rear access route into the covered concrete yard.

Although the single-storey rear extension of around 1980 does involve modern internal finishes that detract from the building's character, it is notably more appropriate than the larger two-storey rear returns seen elsewhere along the terrace: it remains subservient to the original building, retains some first-floor detailing and the original rear yard boundary walling, and therefore represents a significantly smaller loss of overall external character.

Setting

Number 7 forms part of College Square West within a planned arrangement of 53 mill workers' dwellings comprising a formal square of east, north, and west terraces arranged around a central bowling green, playground, and lawn. Each house is set back from the perimeter road and footpath with a modest front yard typically enclosed by dwarf walling topped by hooped metal railings. Rear yards are typically enclosed by random-coursed rubble stone walling with a square-headed door opening onto a wide rear access route.

The eastern terrace comprises 23 dwellings in a similar style but with some significant differences in detailing. These are stepped in groups of six, respecting the subtle relief of the site, and terminate at their southeastern end with the village Town Hall — the former Institute building. The northern terrace is the shortest in the square at 12 houses wide; though similar in style to the other terraces, these are distinctly larger two-storey buildings. The former school building is located at the southeastern end of the western terrace.

The central area of the square is now divided into three sections, each laid to lawn. The area to the northwest contains a bowling pavilion and green, enclosed by painted hooped metal railings with established trees at the northwest boundary. A lawn enclosed by hooped metal railings is located to the southeast. An open children's playground occupies the centre of the square and includes three granite monuments. The first 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." The 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 stating that this was the last stone cut from the Bessbrook quarry. A third monument, formerly in the grounds of Bessbrook Mill and recently moved to its current location, details the mill's history from its ownership by the Pollock family in 1760 to the Bessbrook Spinning Company Limited in 1878.

The listing extends to the house, gate, railings, and walling.