Annaghnoon Weaving Factory

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An early twentieth-century single-storey brick factory formerly associated with the handloom manufacture of linen. The building is in three parts. A main rectilinear plan workspace (SW) has a north-light roof with three bays. Abutting along the length of the eastern flank is a lean-to with a mono-pitch slate roof. Attached to the south is another rectilinear plan element whose brickwork would appear to be of an earlier date. It has an asymmetrical gable roof; the north side of the roof is longer.

Roof: Natural slate & profiled metal sheeting
Walling: Brick.
Windows: Timber sliding sash & casement
Rainwater goods: cast iron

Setting

The factory is located south of Warringstown, close to the eastern end of a laneway off the A26 Banbridge Road. The factory sits close to a steep bank and hedgerow on its western boundary and the site is bounded by open fields to the East and North, with an area of hardstanding and the lane access to the south.

Historical information

The handloom factory at Annaghanoon dates from 1902 (extended 1909) and is thought to have been the last linen handloom weaving factory to operate commercially in Ireland, closing in 1968. The factory played a part in the introduction of legislation to protect handloom weaving in the early 20th century and fulfilled numerous orders for the royal family after the accession of Queen Elizabeth II.

The ‘weaving factory and store’ enters valuation records in 1902 at a valuation of £16. The valuation was raised to £20 in 1909, reflecting an extension to the premises to the N. The building appears on the 3rd edition OS map to the E of a dwelling house named ‘Thornhill’ and is captioned ‘Weaving Factory (Linen)’ on the 4th edition OS map.

‘Thornhill’ was the residence of the Pennington family, initially Thomas Pennington who was a pioneer in the local handloom damask trade. Thomas’s son Samuel (born in 1846) served an apprenticeship with his father until Thomas’s death and then emigrated to the US. He returned to Ireland due to the state of his health and reestablished the business which had lapsed on the death of his father, taking his son James into partnership.

Samuel Pennington & Co specialised in fine damask table napkins and tablecloths and quickly became a significant producer, making damask tablecloths to commemorate the 50th jubilee of Queen Victoria (1887), commissioned by John Simpson & Co of London. The tablecloths are said to have been ordered ‘in very large numbers from all parts of the United Kingdom’. The firm produced a similar souvenir tablecloth for the Diamond Jubilee (1897).

Waringstown was an important centre for the handloom damask trade, which was generally a cottage industry, looms being situated in the homes of workers or in their outbuildings. In 1902 Samuel Pennington built the current centralised handloom shed or factory to more comfortably house the large heavy looms associated with damask weaving. The housing of workers was frequently in poor condition at this period and a centralised shed circumvented the issues caused by leaking roofs etc.

Samuel Pennington claimed to be the first manufacturer to weave the words, ‘Irish hand-woven linen damask’ into his products, an embellishment which was carried out at the factory at Annaghanoon. In the early twentieth century, Pennington produced tablecloths to be sent to J Ramsay McDonald MP (who later became PM) and Keir Hardie MP (leader of the Labour Party) as part of efforts to push for the protection of hand-loom weaving by requiring the words to be woven into all hand-loom fabric. As part of this campaign, Samuel and James Pennington received a visit from the Countess of Aberdeen, wife of the Viceroy of Ireland, in 1908, and showed her round the factory at Annaghanoon, where 28 handlooms had been installed. The Countess ‘expressed herself very well pleased with the appearance of the factory and the manner in which the workers performed their tasks’.

The pressure brought to bear by handloom weavers such as those in Waringstown resulted in the Irish Handloom Weavers Act 1909, which required handloom weavers to mark their products as handloom woven and introduced penalties for those who falsely claimed their goods had been woven on handlooms. At around the time of the passing of the Act in 1909, Samuel and James Pennington expanded the Annaghanoon factory, following an increase in orders. The weaving factory was extended to the N, a change which is depicted on the 4th edition OS map of 1903-16.

James Pennington put Thornhill house and the weaving factory up for sale in 1933 and it was bought by John Abraham. The factory, which at that time contained 24 handlooms, was shut down by 1943 and the machinery sold, the building being used temporarily to house poultry. The factory was taken over by John McCollum in 1945, and c20 handlooms were re-installed. McCollum, who later became known as Lurgan’s linen ‘king’, entered the linen industry at the age of 15 and in 1937 was appointed to the staff of the Lurgan Technical School as a teacher in the art of weaving. With the shutdown of Ireland Bros, his previous employer, McCollum launched his own firm with hand-woven luxury lines.

In 1952 McCollum received an order from the Royal Family for napkins and linen damask cloths for the Coronation, bearing the ER monogram. By this time some of the looms had been weaving linen for three generations and longer and the firm attracted interest from local and regional press as a consequence of this and its royal patrons. After the coronation McCollum’s was said to receive a royal order annually with these commissions entrusted to a group of experienced mature weavers he called the ‘Queen’s Weavers’. In 1955, the ‘Ulster Commentary’ recorded that 50 linen damask banqueting tablecloths, 72 inches square were being woven for the Queen by John McCollum in Waringstown. The tablecloths bore the royal cypher and the royal arms and orders. McCollum also received an order in 1957 to weave eight large banqueting cloths with matching napkins for Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. They were some of the largest tablecloths ever woven by the firm.

By 1960, McCollum’s was reported to be the only linen handloom business in Ireland. That year, 15 dozen damask napkins were ordered by the royal family for Buckingham Palace and were woven on a 150-year-old loom in the Annaghanoon factory, the order taking two months to complete. The pattern, which bore the royal coast of arms, the Victoria Cross and entwined roses, thistles and shamrocks around the border was based on a design from 1895. It was noted that the factory still maintained an earthen floor to maintain humidity and to prevent the flax, which came from Belgium by this time, from breaking.

After McCollum’s death in 1962, the firm was taken over by William Ewart & Son of Belfast who continued with 11 employees and retained the name of John McCollum. The process of weaving was said to be so labour intensive that an experienced weaver could not turn out more than two yards of fabric a day. By that time there were five looms at Waringstown and the Royal commissions continued to be woven there on wooden looms that had been acquired from the surrounding cottages over the years as the cottagers left weaving. The firm closed down in 1968, with its final order being for 12 dozen crested linen napkins for Windsor Castle.

The factory has retained the footprint shown on the 4th edition map, but a historic photograph of the facility shows that there have been some changes to the fenestration, with additional window openings created and others, including rooflights, blocked up. Some roof fabric has also been replaced.

References:
Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/3/20/1 – OS Six inch series 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/20/2 – OS Six inch series 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/20/3 – OS Six inch series 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/20/4 – OS Six inch series 1903-16
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/9D Annual Revision (1901-1908)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/9D Annual Revision (1909-1920)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/9D Annual Revision (1920-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/26 First General Revaluation (1936-57)
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/12/G/1 Valuers RV Binder (1933-57)
10. PRONI VAL/4/B/3/55 Second General Revaluation (c1956)
11. Lurgan Times, 9th April 1887
12. Lurgan Times, 1st May 1897
13. Banbridge Chronicle, 25th May 1907
14. Lurgan Times, 6th July 1907
15. Lurgan Times, 15th February 1908
16. Lurgan Mail, 16th October 1909
17. Northern Whig, 5th December 1919
18. Lurgan Mail, 6th December 1919
19. Belfast Newsletter, 16th June 1928
20. Lurgan Mail, 25th February 1933
21. Lurgan Mail, 5th September 1952
22. Ulster Commentary, November 1955
23. Lurgan Mail, 18th October 1957
24. Banbridge Chronicle, 2nd December 1960
25. Lurgan Mail, 26th November 1965
26. Belfast Telegraph, 12th January 1968
27. Lurgan Mail, 21st December 2000

Secondary Sources:

28. Information and photograph supplied by Donaghcloney Linen Green Association

Evaluation

This early 20th-century light industrial building represents a common example of its type, style, and method of construction. It does not meet the criteria for designation as a building of definite quality or character, nor can it be attributed to the work of a significant architect.
The structure has undergone substantial alteration. Windows have been introduced to the principal elevation, and the north-light roof has been modified with Perspex glazing. Additionally, the southern section’s roof has been replaced with profiled metal sheeting. Internally.
There is insufficient original historic fabric remaining to meet the legislative test for listing. However, this is a good example of a historic building of local interest and may make a suitable candidate for Council's consideration as an Historic Building of Local Importance.