Main Block

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This extensive former flax spinning mill and thread works is situated on the right bank of the Upper Bann, at the NW end of Gilford village, and has been sub-divided into five discrete units (/20A-E).
HB17/01/020A is aligned E-W at the SW corner of the premises and comprises (1) the former flax spinning mill, (2) turbine house, and (3) generator house.

1. Flax spinning mill
The mill is six-storey building dating from the mid-1830s. Now unoccupied but in fair condition at the time of survey. The entire roof was reslated relatively recently as part of an aborted apartment development.

Replacement hipped natural slate roof with continuous skylights to front and rear pitches. Roof gutters and plastic down pipes.
All but the top floor are of random rubble blackstone, brought to courses and embellished with stepped, vee-jointed granite quoins. All openings to these floors are in line, one above the other, and have flattish red brick heads and stepped red brick jambs. All the window openings have granite cills but their frames have been removed except for the 4th floor which retains what may be original 2x3-paned metal-framed windows (with 2x1 opening middle panel). All GF window opes have been sheeted over with plywood for security reasons.

The top storey is a later addition in red brick (probably dating from the period 1903-10), accentuated with yellow brick trim to its quoins, string course along the wall head of the floor below, and corbelled eaves and moulded rendered blocking course over. Originally both the front and back elevations had small square windows only, above alternate windows on the floor below. When the top floor was partly converted into apartments in the recent past, larger openings were inserted between these windows on the S elevation to accommodate timber French windows, the exits from which are blocked on safety grounds with sheets of glass affixed to the outside face of the wall. 2x2 top-opening uPVC windows were inserted into the original window openings.

The mill’s principal elevation faces S and is 27 openings wide. It has timber doors at GF and FF level on the 2nd bay from the left (W) end. The latter is accessed by a ramp up from ground level. The 17th column of openings was formerly abutted by a toilet stack, a later addition since removed; the section of wall which it abutted is rendered over with cement. There would have been a doorway into the stack on each level, but only the GF doorway has been preserved; it has been inserted into an original window and has a flat concrete head.

The 19th column of openings is abutted by projecting eight-stage brick goods hoist stack which rises above the eaves. Originally, it was only seven stages high, the top stage containing the hoist motor. When the mill was raised by a floor, the goods stack was also raised by a stage and the 7th stage largely rebuilt, as is evident in the fresher brickwork of these two topmost stages.
The stack has advanced brick quoins and each stage is delineated by a concrete string course (moulded to the top two stages). Originally there was a 2x3 metal-framed window to each of the bottom five stages. However, that to the 1st stage has been replaced with a lift door set into an enlarged window opening. The window opes to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th stages have been infilled with concrete blocks, but the 5th stage retains its 2x3-paned metal-framed window. The 6th stage has a 3x3-paned circular timber window with concrete ‘keystones’ at their cardinal points. The top two stages are blank. The top stage has corbelled brick eaves around a flat concrete roof. The top of the stack extends backwards to a raised pitched brick section over the roof of the mill (probably to give access to the roof). Each cheek of the stack is blank.

The 20th GF ope contains a double-leaf timber door (with 6x2-paned timber overlight) which led into the staircase to all the upper floors.

Wall markings on the E elevation of building 1A indicate that it was formerly largely abutted to all floors by a now-removed addition. Most of the GF and top floor surfaces are cement rendered and a modern flat-headed doorway has been inserted through the GF. There is a cast-iron bearing housing on each of the intermediate floors, all now infilled with brick; they indicate that there was possibly a rope drive up this end of the mill. There is also a brick-infilled roundel to the 3rd and 4th floors, and two small windows to the top floor.

The N elevation is 27 openings wide (all in line with those along the frontage). The 8th bay from the left (E) end was formerly abutted by a toilet stack, now removed and indicated only by wall rendering and infilled doorways at each level of the mill. There are doorways on the 23rd and 27th bays of the GF. The former is a metal roller shutter under an RSJ head inserted into an original window ope. The latter, with overlight, has been sheeted over.

The W gable was abutted at left by a toilet stack all the way up, but now removed and again only indicated by wall render and infilled access doorways. The remainder of the GF is abutted by the turbine house (building 1B). There are two 2x3-paned metal-framed windows to the 4th floor and a small 2x2 top-opening uPVC window to the top floor.

Roof: Hipped natural slate
Rainwater goods: Plastic down pipes
Walls: Random rubble blackstone and brick
Windows: 2x2 uPVC and 2x3 metal (where present)

2. Turbine house

This single-storey, single-bay building abuts the W gable of the mill and dates from the mid-1830s. Now housing a water turbine, it formerly accommodated a 20ft dia x 22ft wide iron breastshot waterwheel, of which there is no trace.
The building is now very derelict; its hipped natural slate roof has largely collapsed and all rainwater goods are missing. The walls are of random rubble blackstone, now ruinous along their wall heads, and embellished with stepped vee-jointed granite quoins at the W end. All the openings have flattish red brick heads and jambs.
The N elevation contains a window opening (frame missing) and sheeted-over door. The S elevation has a large opening, now inaccessible do to vegetation overgrowth.
Both the headrace from the mill pond and tailrace back to the river are culverted on either side of this building.

Roof: Hipped natural slate
Rainwater goods: Missing
Walls: Random rubble blackstone
Windows: Missing

3. Generator house
This now-derelict single-storey building abuts the W gable of the turbine house and possibly dates to mid-1910s.
It has a monopitched corrugated metal roof (sloping down to W). No rainwater goods. Walls are of red brick with moulded concrete copings and a blocking course to its N elevation.
The N elevation has two timber door openings (one glazed and set in an advanced wall pane) in shallow segmental-headed openings, both now sheeted over.
The left half of the W elevation projects forward and contains two 3x1-paned timber windows (with concrete cills), and an infilled doorway to its right cheek. The set-back section has a doorway (also infilled) and a 6x6-paned metal-famed window at right (with cement-rendered cill).

The S elevation is largely obscured by a raised earth bank.

Just beyond this building is an operational electrical substation enclosed by a corrugated metal fence. There was another to its S, now removed.

Roof: Monopitched corrugated metal
Rainwater goods: Missing
Walls: Brick
Windows: 3x1 timber and 6x6 metal

Setting

This block sits at the SW corner of the premises and is bounded to its immediate E, N and NW by HB17/01/020B, /020E and /020D respectively. To its south, behind an earth and stone embankment, is the former mill pond which supplied the waterwheel and turbine but which is now partially infilled and overgrown. The pond was supplied by a 1½ mile long headrace from two weirs across the river.

Historical information

On 12 February 1835, Hugh Dunbar , a linen thread and cloth manufacturer of Huntly, near Banbridge, leased a corn and tuck mill a short distance E of the present complex in perpetuity from Hugh and Eliza Law. Dunbar had formed a partnership with William Stewart with the intention of erecting a flax spinning mill at the north-west end of Gilford. For this, they needed control of the water supply belonging to the corn/tuck mill.

Work on the new complex began in 1836 and entailed the erection of a five-storey flax spinning mill on the right bank of the river, a handloom weaving factory on the opposite bank and houses for the workers. The five-storey spinning mill and a 22ft diameter x 20ft wide iron breastshot waterwheel of c.90hp output are both explicitly noted in the 1837 Ordnance Survey Memoir. The wheel may well have been designed by the eminent English millwright William Fairbairn. Part of the mill may have become operational in 1838, but the complex was not officially opened until November 184l.

William Stewart died in 1837 and he was replaced by Robert Thompson. Dunbar soon bought his new partner out and then formed another partnership with J.W. McMaster of Armagh. James Dickson became a third partner in 1839. In 1843, the flax spinning and bleaching operations were being carried on by Dunbar, Dickson & Co, and thread production by Dunbar, McMaster & Co. Dunbar died in 1847 and the enterprise was eventually acquired outright by the McMasters. The business was incorporated as a limited liability company in 1886 under the ownership of H. Dunbar McMaster (son of J.W.) and his six brothers.

By 1846, the factory was described as “the largest, or certainly one of the largest, of the flax-spinning factories in Ireland”.
A large scale map of 1860 shows that the complex had largely taken its present size and form. Two chimneys are shown, indicating the use of steam power as well as water. Further details of these engines are given by J. Smyth in 1874, when he describes them as four condensing steam engines working in tandem with the waterwheel. Coal for the steam boilers would probably have been off-loaded from the Newry Canal at Madden Bridge, some 1½ miles south-west of the village. From 1859 onwards, when the Banbridge Junction Railway Co opened the Scarva-Banbridge line, there was also a railway halt at Lawrencetown.

The 1861 Valuation Book describes the premises as “Gilford flax spinning mill, thread manufactory and yard”, all with a rateable valuation of £840. Its operators are given as John Walsh McMaster, James Dickson, Benjamin Dickson, William Spolten and William Robert Massaroan.

A fire in 1869 caused £40,000 worth of damage to buildings and some were subsequently rebuilt.
By 1888, the mill had over 1500 employees, many of whom lived in company houses nearby. Water and steam power drove 16,000 spindles for spinning yarn and a further 4000 for twisting the spun yarn into thread which was exported throughout the world.

The site was described in 1891 as one of the largest thread manufactories in the UK, with a weekly production of 75,000 miles of yard and thread, both bleached and unbleached.

The 1902 Valuation revision entry notes that a portion of the mill had been burnt and was in the course of being rebuilt. A footprint broadly similar to that of today is shown on the 1903 large-scale town map.

In 1907, the site’s valuation rises from £843 to £893, and then to £1070 in 1910, indicating substantial additions. These included the raising of the multi-storey mill buildings, including the one under review, by a further storey and the provision of stair and toilet stacks. Sometime after 1903, the waterwheel was also replaced by the present water turbine and an electricity generating house erected beside the turbine house; the valuation note books indicate this happened c.1913 or shortly afterwards.

Yarn and thread production continued until c.1986 when the mill closed. Thereafter part of the site was used to house small-scale industrial units and a coal yard. Ambitious plans for the buildings’ conversion into an apartment, leisure and shopping complex were formulated in the 2000s but came to nothing and the site now lies unoccupied.

References – Primary sources:
1. PRONI D1769/8/1. Conveyance from Hugh and Eliza Law to Hugh Dunbar cited in 1885 document.
2. OS Memoirs for Tullylish Parish, 1837 revision. Reprinted as A. Day & P. McWilliams (eds), Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Parishes of County Down III, 1833-8, Mid-Down, p.147 (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1992).
3. National Archive, Dublin VO/MILL/5. Valuation Mill Books, Co Down (no date).
4. PRONI OS/6/3/26/1. First edition OS six-inch map, Co Down sheet 26 (1834)
5. PRONI OS/9/33/1/3. Town plan of Gilford, 1:1056 scale (1860).
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/48E, p.66. Second Valuation Book for Tullylish Parish, Banbridge Union (1861).
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-H. Valuation revision books, 1864-1929.
8. PRONI OS/8/11/2/1. Town plan of Gilford, 1:1056 scale (1903).
9. PRONI VAL/12/A/3/7, p.46. Valuation noebook (1910).
10. PRONI OS//11/201/14/1. First edition Irish Gird 1:2500 map, sheet 201-14 (1972).

References – Secondary sources:
1, J. Smyth, On the Industrial Uses of the Upper River Bann (London: Taylor and Francis, 1875).
2. G.H. Bassett, The Book of Co Down, pp 262-263 (1888).
3. The Industries of Ireland, Part 1: Belfast and the Towns of the North, p.165 (London, 1891). Reprinted in 1986 as ‘Industries of the North One Hundred Years Ago’ by Friars Bush Press, Belfast.
4. E.R.R. Green, the Industrial Archaeology of Co Down, p.22, entry 30 (Belfast, HMSO, 1963).
5. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland, plates 83.4 and 87.2 (Belfast: HMSO, 1980).
6. M.P. Campbell, ‘Gilford and its mills’, in Banbridge & District Historical journal, vol.2 (1990).
7. Report on turbine by Mr Terry Maguire, Newmills Hydro, Co Antrim (March 1997).
8. F.W. Hamond, Mill Waterworks, Gilford Spinning Mill, Co Down (report prepared for Environment & Heritage Service, 24 November 1997).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A six-storey, multi-bay flax spinning mill of mid-1830s date, with abutting turbine house (mid-1830s) and generator house (mid-1910s).
This block and the other buildings and structures within this complex comprise one of the largest flax spinning mill concerns still surviving in the Province, and also one of the few to have also produced thread. Its proportions and regularly fenestrated rubble-stonework reflect its mid-19th century date of erection, whilst the use of red brick on the top floor and stair/lift stacks reflect its early 1900s expansion. The presence of an intact water turbine is of particular technical note.

This mill complex was one of the largest in Ireland and of national importance. It also has considerable group value with the adjoining village, particularly given that so many of the houses in the latter were built by Dunbar, McMaster & Co.

General comments

This block was formerly included in HB17/01/020.