Windmill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The windmill is located in a farmyard down an access lane from Mullenan Road. It is surrounded by farm outbuildings to north, east and west, and at south by a two-storey dwelling known as Windmill Farm. Interestingly, it is not on the highest ground hereabouts (which is south of the road), but on the side of a gently sloping hillside.
The mill is of rubble masonry construction and of cylindrical tapered profile. It stands seven storeys high and is capped by a modern shallow pyramidal glass fibre roof over a slightly advanced stone curb. All openings have square split stone heads (vertically laid). There are openings to all but the 6th (cap) floor and most face NE or SW. Apart from the GF door, all the openings on each floor are offset by c.45 degrees relative to those on the floor above (this is good design practise and reduces the risk of cracking had they all been in line). All the windows are of timber (probably relatively modern replacements) and have stone cills. Those to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors are 3x4-paned, whilst the 4th and 5th floor ones are 2x3-paned.
There is a single painted T&G door to GF (probably not original). This floor is also abutted at NW by a single-storey outbuilding (detailed below), with an internal doorway connecting them; this opening is now infilled with random rubble. |There is also a small shuttered opening at E, and a small infilled ope at S (possibly for a drive shaft).
At 1st floor level there is a loading door at S and two windows. Although there is a gap between this floor and the upper floor of the outbuilding (due to the taper of the mill’s wall), there was a doorway from mill, also now infilled.
There are also two windows to the 2nd floor.
Between the 2nd and 3rd floors is a line of external joist sockets. These mark the former position of the gallery, from which the windmill’s sails were accessed via a doorway on the 3rd floor. There is also a window on the opposite side at this level.
The 4th and 5th floors also have two windows apiece, but there are no openings to the 6th (cap) floor.

Roof: Replacement fibreglass.
RWG: None.
Walling: Random rubble masonry.
Windows: Replacement timber 2x3 and 3x4 paned.

The two-storey outbuilding which attached to the windmill at NW has a pitched natural slate roof on advanced stone eaves. There are vestiges of half-round metal gutters and down pipes. The walls are of split random rubble and the GF is tied into the base of the mill.
The NE elevation has a brick-trimmed three-centred doorway at left, now infilled with rubble stone. There is also a large, relatively modern, concrete-headed doorway to centre in an enlarged original opening. There are also two small original window opes at right, at FF level.
The NW gable has a double-height doorway with concrete block jambs. The gable apex is sheeted with corrugated iron. Previous OS maps show a building abutting this end, now long removed.
The SW elevation has miscellaneous door and window openings to both floors. The majority have brick heads and jambs and some are infilled. The right-hand end of the wall is instepped and may have been rebuilt to tie in with the windmill erected at its SE end.

Historical information

A Valuation Revision book entry for 1874 states that this windmill was in the process of being erected in that year: “A windmill erecting here for farm use. To be valued in 1881”. The property belonged to Joseph McPherson at that time and the buildings were rated at £24.10s.0d.
The 1881 valuation entry simply reads “Value windmill erected in 1874 for farm use”, but there is no change in the property’s rateable valuation, or in the buildings’ descriptions (“house and offices”). There is no explicit mention of a mill in any subsequent valuation books.
The property was taken over by Alexander Rolston in 1901, and then by William Love Robinson and William Lewis Robinson in 1927.
The windmill is first depicted on the 1905 OS 25-inch map as a circular structure at the SE end of a long building. It is similarly shown on the 1924 edition. In neither case is it captioned, suggesting that it was probably defunct.
The building to which the windmill was attached is possibly the same one as depicted on the 1830 and c.1850 OS maps. However, it is not inconceivable that the entire yard was reconfigured with new buildings around three of its sides at the same time as the windmill was erected.

References - Primary sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/5/20/1. First edition OS 1:10,560 map, Londonderry sheet 20.
2. PRONI VAL/2/A/5/20B. Valuation map, based on second edition OS 1:10,560 map, c.1850.
3. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/10C. 1866-80 Valuation Revision Book, p.1.
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/10D. 1881-83 Valuation Revision Book, p.1.
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/10F. 1898-1910 Valuation Revision Book, p.1.
6. PRONI OS/10/5/21/4/1. First edition OS 1:2500 map, Londonderry sheet 21-04.
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/10G. 1911-29 Valuation Revision Book, p.3.
8. PRONI OS/10/5/21/4/2. Second edition OS 1:2500 map, Londonderry sheet 21-04.

References - Secondary sources:
1. Information from current owner.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Unlike the vast majority of Ulster’s windmills, which were erected in the 18th and early 19th century, this one dating from 1874 is an extremely late example, built for the farmer for his own private use. There is physical evidence for the use of one set of millstones, but it is conceivable that other functions were carried out as well using power take-offs, e.g. threshing and butter churning. The owner’s father, who is aged 90, cannot recall it ever working, or anyone else who did. It must therefore have ceased operations in the early 1900s.
However, given that the valuation officer appears not to have put a value on it in 1881 it may have been a very small scale operation.
In terms of its heritage merit, the windmill is of architectural interest because of its distinctive tapered cylindrical profile which is reminiscent of the wind-powered flour mills elsewhere in the Province. Although the machinery is missing, it is unusual to find so many floors still reasonably intact, and on the basis of which it is possible to determine where the millstones were situated (on the 2nd floor), and how they were driven (probably overdrive through a two-step gearing from the wind shaft). Its farmyard setting is also largely unchanged.
The mill is also of historical interest as a novel means of powering mechanical tasks such as grain milling and possibly also threshing and butter churning (both tasks which are usually water-powered). This structure is one very few windmills erected in the Province during the second half of the 19th century including several flax scutching mills in the Ards Peninsula, and the corn mill at Kockloghrim, Co Londonderry (IHR 2133). Moreover, it is probably the only one erected specifically to power farm-related equipment (normally water power is used to drive threshers, churns etc).

General comments

This record was previousley HB01/12/011which has been split and is now recorded as HB01/12/011 A & B.