Walkmills

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Storey and a half five bay stone house rendered with a dry dash. Natural slate roof with three dormers aligning with the central bays on the front east facade. Central modern door with no fanlight. 12 pane Georgian sash to the remaining four ground floor bays. Victorian four pane sashes to the dormers. Three rendered chimneys on ridge, one on each gable, third between central bay and that to the south.

The house is located on ground sloping from Drumsurn Road 12m to east. There is a lawn between the house and the road bounded on the south side by a former mill race and on the north by a concrete entrance drive. A curved area in front of the house is gravelled. To the south are farm buildings of relatively modern construction and the scant remains of the former flax mill. To the north adjoining the house and to the east are walls and foundations that were part of the former cloth mill.

The south gable is smooth rendered with two double pane sashes lighting the attic. A two bay return sits out from the second bay to the north of the gable. Its eaves align with the main house and a modern window and a door face south onto a garden bounded by the Castle river. Walls are butter pointed stone rubble.

The rear elevation has one unaltered Georgian 12 pane sash on the northernmost bay. Other windows are modern. Walls are dry dash rendered and the yard is concreted on the northern side of the return. Rubble stone is exposed and the joints butter pointed facing the garden to the south.

Historical information

‘Cloth mill in Ballymully is supplied with water from the Castle River and works three days in the week alternately with Ardmore flax mill, which is supplied by the same mill stream. This mill has been working since Cromwell’s war.’ (Ordnance Survey Memoirs p. 14). ‘Ballymully cloth mill is on the property of Marcus McCausland Esquire of Fruithill… can dress 200 yards per week. Under the roof of the dwelling house, can dye black, brown, green, red, yellow and drab. Information obtained from Henry Wilson, clothier.’ (Ordnance Survey Memoirs p.41). It appears from this that the house was originally part of the cloth mill and that the whole building may be of very great age. On the 1830 map, the present building is shown though it appears to extend at last two bays further to the south. A smaller building (now a ruin) sits to the east. In the 1858 Griffiths Valuation the owner was still McCausland but Thomas Gault occupier of the flax mill in the 1830s is now also tenant for these buildings value: £9.0s 0d. It is now called a ‘tuck’ mill. (The flax mill was valued at £8.10s 0d). The buildings are unchanged from 1830. On the 1904-6 Ordnance Map there is a gap between the present building and the extension to the south now indicated as a corn mill. At this time the owner was John Loughery, grandfather of the present owner. The present owner told us of renovations in the late Victorian period the three dormers were added to servants rooms in the attic. The flax mill remained in production until 1947 when badly destroyed by a fire. The corn mill ceased production in the 1920s and was demolished shortly afterwards. The stone facade of the house was rendered over during the 1930s. The hall was originally divided by a timber screen behind the stair, this was removed in the 1970s.

References:
OSS 1831
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 9
p.14 & p41
The 1858 Griffiths Valuation.
IHR ref:1684

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A long storey and a half farm house originally proportioned and detailed in a simple but elegant manner. Part of the original structure may have been 17th. C. but what survives of the historic styling relates mainly to the Georgian period. It is located near a picturesque section of the Castle river, its historic plan can still be discerned. Georgian period windows and linings survive. It is of local interest for its age and as a historic source of local industry. The site is also of interest for the complicated nature of mill race arrangements to ensure sufficient head of water to serve two working mills.