Ardmore Flour Mill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Group of former mill buildings and a cottage forming an approximately square courtyard south west of Ardmore Lodge (HB02/08/014). Main mill building to the north east side of the courtyard is a three storey structure eight bays wide in rubble stone with brick trims to the windows. (Two bays are obscured by a two storey mill projecting to the south east are in brick). The windows are all of a similar size with segmental head, centre pivot metal windows, with 18 small panes. The roof is in corrugated metal with central cast iron downpipe. There are two doors to the courtyard at ground level one at the north west end has been broken open between two windows and has an exposed ‘I’ beam lintel. One at the south east end has a segmental brick lintel similar to the windows. A third door is at first floor in a window position near the centre.

The two storey building projecting to the south east has cut sandstone ashlar quoins and trims to the openings with rubble between. The openings all have segmental heads. There are five door openings to the courtyard at ground floor irregularly spaced and two windows. Heads do not align as there is a small slope across the facade. At first floor are two door openings and four circular brick trimmed window openings (two on the ground level are blocked up. The roof is slated, rainwater goods cast iron.

The south west of the courtyard is enclosed by a single storey rubble stone shed with corrugated metal roof and is four structural bays long. It is open to the yard and used as a garage.

The north west side of the courtyard is enclosed by a gate and a white washed single storey brick cottage with slate roof and two brick chimneys extending to a tarred corrugated roof over an aligning shed.

To the north east of the group is a large mill pond (dry) with banked sides aligning with the first floor of the main mill. A decayed sluice in timber and concrete is connected to the north west end of the building. A timber bridge with vaulted brick arch below accesses a door at first floor on the south east end. The six pane sash windows are arranged irregularly. Six bays to the north west are in rubble stone the two bays to the south east are in brick. The mill race which runs south east to just beyond Ardmore Bridge is intact for its whole length. There is a concrete sluice at the entrance to the pond.

The rear of the two storey mill is not in ashlar work as is its courtyard elevation. Rubble stone, with brick surrounds to six ground floor openings. There is a vertical joint as it abuts the main mill. The rear of the sheds does not abut the two storey building. There are three window openings.

The cottage has two four pane sashes in its south west gable and a long porch with lean-to roof in the north west side facing the path to Ardmore Lodge.

Historical information

The large mill is indicated on the 1831 map as a corn mill. A mill pond is shown in the present location. There are two parallel buildings. The Ordnance Survey memoirs describes the site as: ‘There is a flour mill in the townland of Ardmore the property of Robert Macrory Esq. It was established in 1822. It is worked by water power from the Castle River, with a water wheel 34 feet in diameter and of 20 horse power, the supply of water very good.’ (p.13). Patrick Macrory in ‘Days that are gone’ recounts that Robert had a lease in Castledawson flour mills in 1817 and in 1822 he left there and started at Ardmore ‘as a flour miller milling wheat’. It may be that the building was used for a corn mill prior to Macrory. On the 1848 map the buildings are unchanged though the mill pond has increased to three times its former size to feed the new corn mill near Ardmore Lodge. On the 1904-6 Ordnance Map, the present arrangement is shown with four buildings around a courtyard. The longer building is demolished and the shorter building has been extended by the two brick bays noted on the description. The work probably occurred in the mid 1870s as the owner of Grain Mills (HB02/08/020) told us that his mill wheel and equipment came from Ardmore at that time. The wheel in Ardmore was replaced by a turbine. According to ‘Days that are gone’ the railway (opened in 1883) destroyed the mill’s profitability bringing in cheap flour from elsewhere. It closed in 1900. The turbine was taken out in 1980.

Stones from Ardmore Castle recorded in the 1830s and owned by Macrory, are now all gone and may well have been employed in extending the mill pond and flour mill later in the century.

References:

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 9 p. 13 & p. 41
Days that are gone - Patrick Macrory (1983)
Mr B Mullan (Ardmore Lodge)
Mr Irwin (Grain Mills)
Ordnance Survey Sheets 1831, 1848, 1904-6
IHR record:

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A reasonably well preserved group of stone buildings rendered quite imposing and dramatic because of their location at the base of a slope on the edge of a flood plain in open countryside. The alterations of the 1870s have created a strong architectural form. It is of local interest as a source of former industry.