Mary Brook House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Extensive and largely complete, small scale ‘Georgian vernacular’ rural milling complex dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries, with water powered two storey corn and flax mills and single storey stable block- all probably mid to late 1700s, a two storey miller’s house of 1837, and subsidiary structures, including a small cottage and storehouse of c.1840s. The grouping was abandoned in the 1950s and lay largely derelict until the early 1970s. Since then it has been restored with the corn mill still operating up until the late 1990s. To the rear of the house are large two and single storey wings a section of which appears to have originally been a barn. The whole grouping has a uniform appearance with harled and whitewashed facades, slated roofs and Georgian paned sash windows and timber sheeted doors, an appearance complimented by the abundance of traditional wrought iron farm gates, stone walling and simple gate pillars.

The complex is picturesquely set at the end of a lane to the W of Raleagh Road, roughly 2½ miles E of Ballynahinch. To the immediate W is the Ballynahinch River, with mill pond to the S.

THE MILLER’S HOUSE
The Miller’s house etc. lies to the SE corner of the complex. The main, two storey, hipped roof portion of the house is now linked (in slightly ‘organic’ fashion) to a series of what appear mainly to have been outbuildings, a part of which may have belonged to an older, dwelling, possibly dating from the 1720s.

The front façade of the main hipped roof portion faces roughly E* and is symmetrical. To the centre of the ground floor is a panelled timber door with large elliptical fanlight with radial tracery and sidelights with ‘interwoven’ tracery. To the left of the doorway is a sash window with Georgian panes (6/6), with three more to the first floor. All the windows throughout the house are sash with similar panes.

The S façade is blank, but is abutted at its very left hand edge by the blank E wall of a single storey extension (see below). The N façade has a window to each floor, as front.

The rest of the S elevation consists of a largely two storey gabled section to left, which was originally separate from the house and probably an outbuilding of some sort [?a barn]. To the right this section is single storey and linked to the main house by means of a single storey flat roofed section which is set further back (i.e. it only abuts the right hand side of the former outbuilding).

The S façade of the former outbuilding has four windows to the ground floor and a timber sheeted door. The 1st, 2nd and 4th windows (from left) are all as front of the main portion of the house. The 3rd window is smaller and has a nine pane frame which appears to be fixed. The doorway is to the immediate right of this window and consists of a timber sheeted door with ‘country garden’ open porch with gabled roof and lattice work sides. The porch roof is slated and has shaped barges. The 4th window is within the single storey section. To the first floor are two windows (as front) set within gabled half-dormers with shaped barges. The short S façade of the flat roofed extension / link to right has a large window with arched lights. The frame for this window was apparently salvaged from a Victorian shop front. The E facing gable of the single storey portion of the ‘outbuilding section has a small, high level, six pane window.

The N façade of the ‘outbuilding’ section faces into a small informal courtyard. This façade has two windows to the first floor, as front. The 2nd window undoubtedly used to be a ‘loft’ door as it is taller and sits under a gabled hood (which may once have had a pulley wheel). To the ground floor is a small nine-pane window. To the W facing gable of the ‘outbuilding’ section is a window (as front) to each floor.

The rest of the N elevation, (to right of N façade of main house), has a complex appearance. It largely consists of a long two storey gabled return, but this is in two distinct sections, with that to the right projecting further to the N, and abutted at ground floor level by a long single storey gabled section. Part of the return may belong to an older dwelling , possibly dating from the 1720s.

The N façade of left hand portion of the return has a timber sheeted door to left on the ground floor. To the right of this is a window, as front but smaller. To the first floor are two similar windows, only smaller again. To the first floor of the N façade of the projecting section to right, are three windows, as front. The N façade of the single storey section has three windows, again, as front, but smaller. To the left of the windows the façade is abutted by a round gate pillar. To the ground floor of the E facing exposed portion of gable between the two sections of the return there is a window, as front. To the E facing gable of the single storey section there is a timber sheeted door.

The S façade of the return faces into the rear ‘courtyard’. To the ground floor are four sash windows, as front. To the first floor are five similar (but slightly smaller) windows. To the W facing gable of the return there are two windows to each floor, as before.

To the W side of the rear courtyard is the, single storey, flat roofed, extension / link. Virtually all of the E face of this is glazed with two sets of three light salvaged Victorian shop windows , as S elevation, with a modern glazed double door between. Within this extension the original ground floor window to rear of main house has been left intact, as has the door opening to the N, which gives access to the return. To the exposed upper right hand section of the rear (W) façade of the main section of the house, (which can be seen above and beyond the extension), there is a window, as front.

The façade of the entire house is harled and whitewashed. All sections of the roof, (except the extension), are slated. The extension has a dentilled eaves course. The main section of the house has two central chimney stacks, the return has two more and the single storey section to N has one. There is a further small stack to the NW corner of the return and, to the SW corner of the main house, rises a slim chimney breast. All the stacks are finished as façade and have [?stone] coping, with octagonal pots to main stacks. Cast iron rw goods.

*For the sake of simplicity only the four main compass points have been used.

Historical information

The corn mill (without the smaller projection to the north), the flax mill and the stable, are all shown on the OS map of 1834 and recorded in the valuation returns of 1836. All of these buildings were graded B+ to B- by the valuers, suggesting that they believed (or were informed) that most were at least twenty years old at that point. At this stage, the miller’s residence consisted of a long single-storey dwelling, which stood on the site of the present house; the valuers believed this to be the oldest building on the site, possibly dating from the early to mid 1700s.

In 1837 the present two-storey dwelling was built, with perhaps some of the fabric of the original house incorporated within the return. The two-storey barn to the south of the house was also added around this date, as was the storehouse to the north of the flax mill, the small cottage-like building and the projection to the north side of the corn mill. All of these are shown on the revised OS map of 1858.

The valuation of 1861 records that the house and mill were then in the possession of Christiana Silcock, who leased them from Alexander John [?and] Robert Stewart Esq. The buildings listed include: the house measuring 14½yrds x 5 x 2 (storeys), with return of 6 x 5 x 2; offices of 10 x 5 x 1, 7 x 4 x 1, 6½ x 4 x 1, 24 x 5 x 1 and 16 x 6 x 2; a ‘slated’ store of 15 x 5 x 1; a ‘slated’ shed of 6 x 4 x 1; a ‘second scutch mill slated’; a ‘shed store- wing’ of 6 x 3 x 1, and a pig house of 9½ x 3½ x 1. The house was graded ‘A’ with all of the other buildings ‘B’, suggesting that most of these were indeed the same structures listed in the 1836 valuation. The valuers also mention a ‘barn on loft’, a ‘flax mill on basement containing 3 stocks with rollers’, a ‘breast water wheel’ of 14ft with buckets of 4ft, which worked ‘briskly 4 months in the year’, and ‘4 stocks and set of rollers’. As regards the corn mill, they state that there were ‘3 pair of stones viz shelling, grinding and hard corn and one stone for dressing pearl barley’ with a 18ft breast shot wheel with buckets 5ft, which also worked ‘briskly 4 months in the year’.

The Silcock family mentioned in both the 1836 and 1861 valuations are believed to have acquired Mary Brook some time around c.1790 to c.1800 from a family named Traill. The Traill connection with the area goes back to 1647, when James Traill, an officer in the Parliamentary army, was granted the townland of Drumnaconagher. His grandson, also named James, is believed to have been the first to actually settle within the townland, building a house there in 1721. Walter Harris, writing in his ‘Ancient and Present Sate of the County of Down’ in 1744 refers to this house, (then occupied by James’s son, Hamilton Traill), as ‘Marybrook, seated on a rising ground near a small lake…two miles SSE of Ballynahinch. On the face of it, this reference appears puzzling, for the present Mary Brook does not appear to be sited on rising ground, nor is it near a small lake, and it is closer to 3 miles east of Ballynahinch, rather than SSE. However, if we take into account that that ground level to the north of the flax mill drops considerably (a drop which may have been more pronounced in the mid 1700s), then this could explain the ‘rising ground’, and the ‘small lake’ may simply be a reference to a mill pond or a flood plain relating to the nearby river. The discrepancy in the mileage due to Harris’s use of the longer Irish mile (as was common at that time), and the anomalous location in relation to Ballynahinch, the result of inaccurate mapping. In fact a contemporary map entitled ‘A New and Correct Map of Ye County of Down [?produced to accompany Harris’s book], actually locates places almost directly east of Ballynahinch, such as Kilmore, considerably further south.

At its height in the late 19th century, the Mary Brook complex employed around 150, not only in corn and flax milling, but also in a small hemstitching factory, which was situated in a (now modernised) building along the main drive off Raleagh Road. The children of employees were taught in a small schoolhouse on the site (the single-storey section attached to the large two-storey north return of the house).

The hemstitching factory closed c.1900, with the flax mill ceasing production a few years later. The corn mill continued in full-time use until after WWI, with production coming to a halt by the 1930s. The Silcock family continued to reside at Mary Brook until the early 1950s, after which the site was abandoned and fell into decay. In the early 1970s it was acquired by Mr Lewis-Crosby, a senior figure within the National Trust, who restored the buildings and brought the corn mill back into use.

The present owner acquired the complex in 1998. At the time of writing (October 2000) the corn mill is not worked.

References- Primary sources
1 Harris, Walter, ‘The Ancient and Present Sate of the County of Down’ (Dublin, 1744), p.78
2 PRONI VAL/1A/3/30 OS map, County Down sheet 30, with valuation
references, (1834-c.38)
3 PRONI VAL/1B/386 First valuation, Kilmore, 1836
4 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Down IV’ ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1992) (1836)
5 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ (Henderson, Belfast News-Letter, 1852- )
6 PRONI VAL/2A/3/30A Revised OS map, County Down sheet 30, with valuation references, (1858-c.61)
7 PRONI VAL/2B/3/68 Second valuation, Kilmore (1861)
8 PRONI OS/6/3/30/3 OS map, 2nd edition, Co. Down sheet 30, (c.1901)

Secondary sources
1 Green, E.R.R., ‘The Industrial Archaeology of County Down’ (Belfast, HMSO, 1963)
2 “Silcock’s Mills at Drumnaconagher” in ‘Mourne Observer’, 27th March 1970
3 ‘Burke’s Irish Family Records’ (London, 1976), p.1176 [Details concerning the Traill family]
4 McCutcheon, W.A., ‘The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’, (Belfast, HMSO, 1980), p.244

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

Extensive and largely complete, small scale ‘Georgian vernacular’ rural milling complex dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries, with water powered two storey corn and flax mills and single storey stable block- all probably mid to late 1700s, a two storey miller’s house of 1837, and subsidiary structures, including a small cottage and storehouse, of c.1840s. The grouping was abandoned in the 1950s and lay largely derelict until the early 1970s. Since then it has been restored with the corn mill still operating up until the late 1990s. To the rear of the house are large two and single storey wings a section of which appears to have originally been a barn. The whole grouping has a uniform, ‘semi-vernacular’ appearance with harled and whitewashed facades, slated roofs and Georgian paned sash windows and timber sheeted doors, an appearance complimented by the abundance of traditional wrought iron farm gates, stone walling and simple gate pillars.

The millars house is the architectural focus of the group and is of interest in is own right for its style, proportion, development as a building, the quality of its interior, and its setting.

The preservation and character of the group is considered to be of national interestt. The scarity of such an intact group is also of note.