Former Wash Mill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Former wash mill and nearby workers cottage on edge of an old bleach green (Roe Green)and immediately adjacent the riverside walk of the Roe Valley County Park. Buildings align north west to south east.

The wash mill presently consists of a large single storey stone building with steep pitched corrugated metal roof and a derelict much smaller building - roofless - which extends from its northern corner. The south east gable of the main barn has a single door opening on the centre of the facade. This is in the centre of a bricked up horse shoe arch. On the south western side is one opening, though there is evidence of a number of others now bricked up. The north west gable has a large rectangular opening trimmed in brick with modern corrugated iron doors. There are a number of bricked up sections on the north east gable.

The derelict building had a mono pitch roof. On the north west and south east gables are two semi-circular arches bricked up at ground level. There is a door opening on the centre of the south west wall. Much of this stone building seems to have been rebuilt in brick over the years.

The workers cottage parallel, and ten metres south west, is a two room direct entry vernacular stone cottage with a third room on the north west gable in brick. The building is white washed, with natural slate roof, and in a state of dereliction. There are two brick chimneys on the ridge one at each end of the stone part of the building. The entrance facade faces south west towards another group of mill buildings (HB02/03/013). There is a lean-to porch. No window frames remain.

Historical information

Both buildings appear to be indicated on the 1831 map. They are not labelled as mills though a mill pond is labelled to the south at the far end of the bleach green. On the 1848 map the building referred to as the wash mill is labelled ‘Old Wash Mill’. On neither of these maps is the derelict mono pitched building shown. This appears for the first time on the 1907 map. There is no label given to the building on this or subsequent maps. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834-5 may be referring to the buildings closer to Large Bridge but recount that ‘A bleach green in the townland of Largy ceased to work in 1831’ (this explains the absence of labels on the map. ‘The machinery of the old wash mill is completely out of repair; the other parts of the building are occupied for a linen manufactory… established 19th December 1833… The water wheel is a breast 16 feet in diameter and 6 feet across the rim and placed in the house of the old wash mill, it works a crane with wheel and pinions of metal.’ The bleach green had been set up in 1766 by Lesley Alexander of Newtown Limavady. It ceased work in 1831 but Richardson and Smith of Lisburn started a linen factory in 1833 producing linen yarn for cottage weavers. There is evidence that the site was still working in 1840. By 1857 the valuation recorded ‘no works of any kind doing business in these premises for some time past.’ A wash mill was used for the repeated washing, bucking (soaking), boiling and bleaching of woven cloth - processes which could not be satisfactorily carried out by home labourers, thus these processes were the first to apply mechanical power.

References:

OSS Map1831
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 25 p.82
Electricity from the Red River p.8
Industrial Heritage Record Ref: 1680: 7

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Two buildings of little architectural value. They are of importance because of their connection to the wider complicated history of the mills of the Roe Valley Country Park.