Mill site, Erganagh Road, Castlederg BT81 7JS

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two-storey rubble former flax mill , built c.1840. Rectangular on plan facing south and located on the west side of Erganagh Road.
Pitched corrugated iron roof, iron ridge, concrete skews and metal rainwater goods. Uncoursed rubble stone walling with redbrick quoins, all in lime mortar. Square-headed door and window openings with stone and timber lintels having some metal casement windows.

Multi-bay two-storey south elevation with squared stone quoins visible to the centre, indicating an extension of the structure to the east. East section has largely collapsed.

West gable is blank with an attached iron vertical breastshot waterwheel with timber floatboards, formerly fed by a rubblestone sluice (channelled from the nearby river).

Rear north elevation is partially built into the sloping site with two openings.

East gable is blank.

To the north is the remains of a chimneystack, built in rubble stone to the base with squared stone quoins and redbrick to the remainder laid in stretcher bond with a brick string course.

On the summit of the hill is a range of early twentieth-century cement rendered buildings with asbestos pitched roofs.

Roof Corrugated iron
Walling Uncoursed rubble / redbrick quoins
Windows Metal casement
Rainwater goods Metal

Historical information

The current building first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1855 captioned ‘Flax Mill’. The third edition (1905) also shows a ‘Weir’ and sluice and a pond is visible. The fourth edition also shows a chimney on the mill complex.

Griffith’s Valuation lists a ‘flax mill’ occupied by Joseph Stuart and leased from the Marquis of Abercorn. It is valued at £6.10s.

In 1871 the valuation is increased to £11.10s due to the addition of ‘steam power, 10 horse, 10 stocks’. Joseph Stewart becomes the owner in fee in 1889 and Charles Stewart in 1907. A revaluation is requested c.1915 and the valuers’ accompanying notebook gives a plan and dimensions for the mill. The value is reduced to £6 but raised again to £8. A valuer’s note explains, ‘No deduction should be made in motive power for use in only part of a year, for that is the full flax season’.

In 1934 the occupier is Charles Stewart and the flax mill is described as ‘at rest’. The mill comprises a scutching room on the ground floor and a bruising room on the first floor. The valuer comments, ‘Three stocks only in working order (there used to be 8). Five pair roller bruising machine. Water wheel 16’ by 5’. Mill has not been working for the last four years’. The valuation is consequently reduced from £15 to £1. Dimensions for a mill and store are given, the mill being of rubble masonry and slate and the store of rubble masonry and corrugated iron.

In 1942 valuers note that the mill is “now working. Eight stocks. Four in use. Electric motor drive. 20 H.P. motor installed. 5 pair of rollers. Probably about 12 H.P. drives the mill at present...Working five months per annum”. The valuation is consequently raised from £1 to £7.10s. A new store has been built which is a corrugated iron shed and dimensions are given.

Although the Ulster linen industry began to contract during and after the Great War, during the Second World War its decline was slowed somewhat and impressive quantities of war supplies were produced: flax hosepipe, parachute webbing, aeroplane fabric, heavy canvas, tarpaulins and hatch covers for the Mercantile Marine, general purpose linen dowlas and blitz covers, canvas and duck for Admiralty, linen scrim for packing, linen thread and seaming twine, fresh nets, twines, water-bag canvas, flax tentage, hammock canvas, braided cordage for aircraft production, linen for flying suits, mechanical cloths, special tank canvas for amphibious tanks, linen cambric for ammunition filling. (Crawford, p.36-7)

References:

Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/6/16/1 – Ordnance Survey Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/16/2 – Ordnance Survey Map (1855)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/16/3 – Ordnance Survey Map (1905)
4. PRONI OS/6/6/16/4 – Ordnance Survey Map (1939)
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/6/40A – Griffith’s Valuation Records (1858)
6. PRONI VAL/12/A/6/2 – Valuers’ Note Book (date?)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/35/17A-F – Annual Revision Records (1860-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/D/7/1P/1 – Valuers RV Binder (1933-1957)

Secondary Sources

Crawford, W. H. “The Irish Linen Industry” Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, 1987

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A multi-bay two-storey rubble stone former mill structure located on the west side of Erganagh Road. Built during the first half of the nineteenth-century this former flax mill was in use until the early 1930s. The site was re-opened for use in the early 1940s when the later concrete structures were built. While the original mill building appears to have been out of use for over half a century, the waterwheel remains largely intact and together the mill building and sluice constitute the remains of an increasingly rare example of nineteenth-century industrial archaeology. Unfortunately the original mill building is not in poor condition and much altered.