Engine House

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).
HB17/01/020D, at the W end of the premises, comprises (1) a two-storey former engine house, at the north end of which is (2) a four-storey store. Both date from the period 1836-1860 and are now abandoned and derelict.

1. Engine house
This building is aligned N-S at the SE corner of the block. Pitched natural slate roof with skylight, and raised firebreak at N end. Vestiges of plastic gutters and down pipes. Walls of random rubble blackstone with stepped vee-jointed granite quoins to S gable. The wall has been raised slightly in red brick, probably at the same time as building 2 was added (no granite quoins).
The E elevation contains a sheeted-over door above which is a large 5x4-paned timber window opening with brick semicircular head and jambs which extends up through both floors. A circular metal exhaust flue projects through the window from a disused oil-fired boiler inside. Towards the left (S) side of this elevation is a small cast-iron bearing housing.
The S gable may have been formerly abutted as there are traces of whitewash and the roof oversails this end slightly. There are three sheeted-over window openings to the GF, all with granite cills. Infilled doorway to FF and door to apex.
The W elevation was formerly abutted to its GF by a single-storey Belfast-roof building aligned E-W and spanning the tailrace. This section of the wall is cement rendered, with a flat-headed double-leaf timber door out thereto. Above it is a 4x3-paned window set in a semicircular opening trimmed with brick.

Roof: Pitched natural slate
Rainwater goods: Plastic
Walls: Random rubble blackstone and brick
Windows: multi-paned timber

2. Store
This four-storey building abuts the N gable of building 1 and is aligned N-S. Its skylit pitched natural slate roof is slightly higher than that to 4A and also has four circular metal ridge ventilators. Vestiges of plastic rainwater goods.
The walls are of red brick throughout; the wall heads are also continuous to those of building 1, indicating that they are contemporary.
The E elevation is five openings wide. The entire wall above GF level is supported by an RSJ running the length of the building. The GF section is rendered and contains five large openings, all infilled or sheeted over. The FF is painted and has four 1x2-paned top-opening timber windows with sidelights (but no cills). The remaining two upper floors have 2x3-paned top-opening timber windows, all with granite cills. There is also a double-leaf sheeted timber loading door at the right (N) end of SF.
The N gable is of random rubble with a brick apex. Rendered GF and FF. Small window opening to apex.
The W elevation is partly abutted by a two-storey high building, of which only vestiges survive. The exposed GF walls are rendered. 2x3-paned top-opening timber windows are visible on SF and TF. A felt-covered timber chute runs vertically up the right (S) end of this elevation.

Roof: Pitched natural slate
Rainwater goods: Plastic
Walls: Brick and random rubble blackstone
Windows: 2x3 timber

Setting
This block is located at the W end of the premises and is bounded to its E and SE by a chimney (HB17/01/020E) and multi-storey mill (/020A) respectively. To N, separated from the premises by a post and wire fence, is a landscaped public park. The tailrace runs along its W side of the engine house, beyond which is a yard with rubble masonry wall separating it from 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 some of the multi-storey mill buildings 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 two-storey steam engine house and four-storey store of mid-1800s date. It comprises a two-storey former engine house, at the north end of which is a four-storey store. Both date from the period 1836-1860. 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 merit lies in its functional relationship with the rest of the mill complex (being its source of power in addition to water), contribution to the setting of the complex, and group value therein. 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.