Wool Store Mill Street Caledon Co. Tyrone BT68 4TT

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three-storey gable-ended building of perhaps c.1825, latterly used as a store but which evidence suggests may also have at one stage contained a dwelling house. It is located at the west end of a mixed terrace on the north side of Mill Street in the village of Caledon, and is presently disused.

The plan is basically rectangular, with the front elevation facing south, and the rear, which is now largely obscured by creeper growth, backing on to sloping ground to the north. To the west end (where the also ground rises, but in less steeper fashion) there is a small single-storey late 20th century lean-to, whilst the eastern end merges into a lower, but similar, two-storey house. The walls are constructed in limestone, which to the front is roughly squared at ground floor level but somewhat less regular above, with the original openings dressed in brick and the later insertions / enlargements in brick, concrete block and limestone. The roof is slated and has stone parapets. The original windows to the front are relatively small, regularly arranged and largely uniform, but with minor variations in size (for instance those to the first floor front are slightly smaller than their counterparts on the other levels). Two of the windows would appear to have been enlarged at some point to from loft doorways, whilst most the rest are blocked in concrete block but retain the dilapidated remains of sash frames, with those to the ground floor filled in concrete block which is flush with the façade. Metal RW goods.

The front elevation is asymmetrical. To the left on the ground level is a large doorway which appears to be a late 20th century insertion and has a metal-sheeted double door. To the right of this is a blocked up window, then a blocked up doorway, with another window and doorway to the far right, also blocked. The last doorway is awkwardly positioned (it is not in line with the openings above) and as such may not be original.

The ground level of the west gable is covered by the lean-to that runs into higher ground to the north. From this northern end a first floor doorway (now blocked-up) is accessed. The east gable abuts the house to this side with only the uppermost storey fully exposed. There are no openings to this side and a large section of the gable is covered in creeper growth. The rear elevation is almost wholly covered in the same growth and due to this and the rising ground to this side the whole elevation is largely obscured. Drawings dating from 2010 show an asymmetric arrangement, with doorways to the far left and far right on the ground floor with three window openings between and three more in line with these to the first floor. There are three more windows to the second floor, out of line with those below but symmetrically arranged.

Historical information

On Robert Barns’s 1813 map of the village of Caledon, what was later to become Mill Street is shown as the ‘Road down to [the] Bason’, with development on the north side on those plots now occupied by the store and the terrace to the immediate east. These buildings are depicted by Barns as largely single or one and a half-storey freestanding dwellings and outbuildings, and as such it is unlikely that any of them equate to the store itself. That said, however, the coursing of the stonework on the front wall (at least) suggests that the present structure may have started out considerably lower than today, or possibly contain some of the fabric of an earlier structure.

In the 1820s and 1830s, much of the village was redeveloped by James Du Pre Alexander, 2nd Earl of Caledon, with many of the characterful limestone properties that make up a significant portion of Main Street and elsewhere dating from this time. The south side of Mill Street witnessed the biggest single change, namely the construction of a large six-storey corn and flour mill, commenced in 1823 at a reputed cost of £47,000. Much the subsequent evolution of the street was directly influenced by the presence of this complex, with a terrace of mill workers’ houses added to the east of the mill sometime before 1834, with the OS map of the same year showing a long continuous row on the northern half of the street taking in the site of the store.

Unfortunately, due to a dearth of original documentation, (many of the 19th century valuation records for the Caledon area – which would have revealed the details of local properties such as dimensions, use, alterations etc.- are missing), It is difficult to trace the history of the building, and its original function. Its construction suggests it may have been contemporary with the mill (ie 1820s), and as such it may originally have served the latter in some capacity, but this is not certain. The extant sources indicate that from at least the late 1850s it (or whatever stood on this site) was part of a larger single property that took in the two two-storey dwelling houses to the immediate east (or whatever was on their sites). This larger property may have been the unoccupied ‘house, office and yard’, which is noted in the extant printed second valuation of c.1859 as in the hands William Browne and James Clow, the pair who at that point held the lease of the mill itself. However, due to discrepancies between the sources (the reference numbers on the accompanying valuation map do not match the written record), it is difficult to verify this.

During the 1860s and 1870s the property does not appear to be mentioned in the valuations at all, emerging in 1882 as the ‘house and yard’ leased by Charles Farrell from the what was by that point the Caledon Woollen Mills Ltd, the former corn, (and latterly also flax), mill having been converted solely to textile production by Sherrard, Smith & Co. two years prior. By 1890 it is noted as three separate dwellings, with the ‘store’ portion (by this stage no.2 Mill Street) occupied by Thomas Farrell. John Graham is noted as the leaseholder in 1901 and William Bryans in 1904, who from this date until 1928 held both it and neighbouring no.4. In 1935 no.2 is specifically listed in the valuation book for the first time as a ‘store’, and is recorded as vacant, with the lease – following the mill’s final closure in 1930 – having reverted to the Caledon Estate. According to the subsequent valuations, the building remained out of use until at least 1957, but it clearly seems to have been utilised in some capacity for a period after this. A local resident has stated that c.1960s-70s it was used for growing mushrooms.

Despite the records indicating that the building served as a dwelling for many decades, there is little evidence of this today. There are no chimneystacks, the internal layout has been radically altered and there have been significant alterations to the front elevation, notably the enlarging of several front façade openings to create upper level warehouse doorways with an additional entrance inserted to the left at ground level. The upper level doorways look like late 19th or early 20th century creations, however, suggesting that from this period at least the building contained a warehouse, as well as living quarters.

The large mill which stood on the opposite side of the street was largely demolished in the mid-1980s with only part of the engine house left in place.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.2433/A/13/7/1 Caledon Papers ‘A map and survey of tenements and gardens in the town of Calidon by Robt. Barns’, 1813
2 PRONI OS/6/6/67/1 OS map 1st ed. 1834, Co Tyrone sh.67
3 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland vol.20: Parishes of County Tyrone II’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1993)
4 PRONI VAL/1B/66c First valuation, Parish of Aghaloo (1836-38)
5 Lewis, Samuel, ‘Topographical Dictionary…’ (Dublin, 1837)
6 PRONI OS/6/6/67/2 OS map 1st rev c.1857, Co Tyrone sh.67
7 PRONI VAL/2B/6/6C Second valuation, Parish of Aghaloo (1859) [MS valuation is missing. Print version consulted.]
8 PRONI VAL/2D/6/14 Valuation town plan of Caledon (1859)
9 PRONI VAL/12B/38/8b-f Annual valuation revision books, 1864-1929
10 PRONI VAL/12E/164/1 Valuation town plan of Caledon, 1905 [-1909]
11 PRONI OS/65/1 OS town plan of Caledon (1907)
12 PRONI VAL/3G/136/2 Valuation town plan of Caledon (1935-54)

Secondary sources
1 W.A. McCutcheon ‘The industrial archaeology of Northern Ireland’ (Belfast HMSO 1980)
2 ‘Caledon Conservation Area’ (DOENI, 2003)
3 Information from Mr. William Beattie (January 2019)

Evaluation

Three-storey limestone-built former warehouse of perhaps c.1825 which may have started out as - or originally incorporated - a dwelling house (or houses). This building has witnessed various changes over the years with some of the openings to the front enlarged and others inserted, whilst the interior space has been radically altered with the complete loss, it would appear, of the original layout and detailing. The property, locally known as the ‘Wool Store’ may have been originally associated with a large 1820s corn (and later woollen) mill that once stood on the opposite side of the street, but which was almost entirely demolished in the mid-1980s.

General comments

Surveyed December 2018. Did not meet recriteria for listing. Close LQ file HB13/LQ064