Roe Mills

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two rendered and tiled houses of approximately square plan on the site of the former Roe Mills. Nothing remains of the former buildings on initial inspection. The millrace travelling from O’Cahan’s rock to the south is reasonably complete, the sluice gate at the head is recorded under HB02/13/009A.

Historical information

Considered by some to be the site of the’Mills of the Roo’ one of two mills recorded in 1333 as part of the Norman ‘manor of the Roo’. In 1611 ‘Sir Thomas Philips, knight, hath erected a water-mill at Limavady, unto which he drew water a mile, in a sluice or pond, 12 foot broad and 5 foot deep’. The present mill stream starts near a weir called Phillips Weir (HB02/13/009B) It is suggested by some sources that he renovated existing workings. A mill in Callasan (Coolessan) is recorded in the 1654-6 civil survey. In 1788 Thomas Connolly reminded his tenants that by the terms of their leases they were bound to grind their corn at the manor mill (the Roe Mill). The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1833-5 record that ‘The Roe Mill distillery was established in 1821 by William Moody Esquire in place of a bleach mill which was on their premises. The wheel for driving the pumps is 16 feet in diameter and 2½ feet broad. The houses attached are as follows: the Kings warehouse, malthouse, a mill, a storeroom for grain, an engine house, a copper house and a still house. To the distillery is attached a corn mill established also in 1821. It is double geared, has two pair of stones for grinding malt for distillery and two pair for grinding corn for the country…The wheel is a breast wheel (16 feet in diameter and six feet broad, fed from a cistern. The buckets are of sheet iron; the axle and shafts are also of metal’. The distillery was still in operation in 1852 when owners Carne and Poulson sent a sample of their malt whiskey to Derry Sentinel newspaper. By 1893 it was being used as a flour mill and one of the wheels had been replaced by a water turbine. In 1895 a fire destroyed a large part of the buildings. Rebuilt with only the turbine it was bought by the Limavady Electric Supply Company (see HB02/13/008) in 1926 and used to generate hydro electric power. A second turbine was installed in 1938. The Electricity Board for Northern Ireland acquired the company in 1946 and the plant continued in use until 1965. Subsequently the buildings feel into dereliction and were demolished in the early 1980s for the two new houses.

References:

J Stevenson,- Electricity from the Red River (NIE)
Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 9 p.53
Industrial Archaeology Record Reference: 1462

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Interesting, historical, archaeological and industrial remnant along the River Roe which underwent many reconstructions and transformations in a possible 750 year history - now gone.