Water mill - horizontal-wheeled

The National Monuments Service's description

In reclaimed pasture, 48m S of a stream, 112m E of townland boundary with Garrane. Toberlaghteen holy well (LI022-116----) lies 116m to NE. Originally identified in 1942, the site was reported to the National Museum of Ireland in 1954 and excavated in 1955 by A. T. Lucas. The report describes the site as, 'located in a boggy field which sloped gently westwards to a boggy rush-grown bottom. It consisted of a low, roughly pear-shaped mound with an irregularly hummocked surface, which measured about 15.3m east-west and 6.35m in maximum width north-south. Lying on the long axis of the mound at its broadest part was an oak chute, wider at one end than at the other. The narrow end, which lay to the west, rested on a large oak beam set on edge which ran north-south under it'. (Lucas 1969, 13). A cutting (L 8m; Wth 1m; D 1m) orientated N-S revealed two parallel banks of yellow clay (H 0.5m), 4m apart which defined the millpond. A third cutting (L 2m; Wth 1m; D 1.15m) revealed no evidence of a bank. Excavations also revealed that the wheelhouse and superstructure had been erected on a foundation layer of clay and stones laid down on the peat. Three fragments of wooden boards were uncovered in the area of the former wheelhouse. Two were the remains of a wooden floor which formerly extended across the wheelhouse while the third was a board that ran transversely across the west end of the wheel house. The chute (L 2.08m), tapered from 0.36m-0.7m in width, had been uncovered fourteen years previously. It was rectangular in section and had been hollowed out of a single piece of oak. The supporting beam for the chute (L 2.16m; Wth 0.46m; D 0.25m) was also located and recorded (ibid., 12-22). The timbers from Knocknagranshy have been dendrochronologically dated by Queens University to between the 8th and 9th centuries (Brady 2006, 48). The excavated mill site is not visible on Google Earth orthoimage taken 2020 which shows drainage channels running N-S in the field.

See attached plan of watermill taken from excavation report and Google Earth orthoimage taken 14/02/2020

Compiled by: Fiona Rooney

Date of upload: 6 August 2020

References

Lucas, A. T. 1969 A horizontal mill at Knockangranshy, Co. Limerick. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 12, 12-22.

Brady, N. 2006 Mills in Medieval Ireland: Looking beyond design. In S. A. Walton (ed.), Wind & water in the Middle Ages: fluid technologies from antiquity to the Renaissance, 39-68. USA. Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Arizona State University.