Mount Caulfield was built in the eighteenth century and latterly further developed by William Hudson who was then the owner and landlord of extensive estates in the Bessbrook area.

In 1867, when John Grubb Richardson developed the vast spinning mill and the town of Bessbrook for the workers to man the same, the house was acquired by him. It being the Victorian age, the building took on that appearance. Richardson, who was responsible also for the Bessbrook pond, tapping water from the nearby Camlough Lake, incorporated an ornamental millrace into the house grounds. 

American soldiers were billeted in the house before the invasion of Europe in the Second World War.