Grain Mills

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three surviving historic buildings of interest amid more modern mill buildings.

The main building is the Grain Mill itself. This has sections at both gables remaining, but the middle portion has been demolished to provide a much higher and wider space with bags of grain stacked in pallets for use with fork lift trucks. At the southern end is the remaining portion of the mill with all the cogs and machinery associated with the mill wheel still intact (NB there are timber teeth in the cogs). To the east side is a small room containing an electricity turbine and a door out to the wheel on the external gable. This wheel is intact apart from one damaged bucket. It was made by ‘John A Taylor Strabane foundry’. Above on the gable is a date stone ‘1873’. Water for the wheel comes from a timber box directly above connected by a sluice to the end of the mill race. There is an ’18 feet fall’ on the wheel. Four metres to the south a concrete turbine house projects from the mill race. A turbine was never installed. Between the two a 300mm diameter pipe falls parallel and then turns sharply north to serve the small electricity turbine.

At the other end of the former building is the house for the former kiln. This has now been removed inside and openings on the exterior have been blocked up. The gable is in basalt with brick quoins to first floor. Above it is completely brick.

The wheel gable is mostly basalt repaired in brick near the roof repaired again in concrete block above to change part of the pitch.

The second building is 20 metres to the north aligned approximately east-west and is used as a store. It two storey built of basalt trimmed with brick at corners and around openings. The east gable has a sandstone date stone trimmed in brick with ‘1892’ inscribed. The ‘9’ inch is back to front. The roof is of natural slate. At the west end the ground level is much higher and aligns with the first floor which is open across the whole gable. This portion is an extension of the building by one bay built of brick and of a different dlate.

The third building of note is the former mill owners house between the two already mentioned. It aligns east-west also and has been much altered on the exterior. It has asbestos slates on the roof and is rendered in a modern wet dash. At the west end is the mill offices with two modern windows and a chamfered corner.

Historical information

A flax mill is indicated on the site of the grain mill on the 1830 Ordnance Survey Map. The house is also indicated. It is described in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs as “In the town…"

References:
0SS 1831
0SM Vol 9

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A very interesting group of historic mill buildings hidden in among a modern working mill. The preservation of the mill wheel, workings and sluices is unusually good. Viewed from upstream the mill, wheel, river and trees are very picturesque. Also of interest is the fireplace in the former cottage which in its size reflects the wealth of the inhabitants, and the late 19th century organisation of cottage store and mill. Modern renovations have reduced the historic architectural quality of the group.