Chimney

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A free-standing chimney standing to its full height. Of red brick set in cement-rich mortar. Square cross section and slight inward taper from base to top. Top corbelled with three courses of brick and further embellished with two brick string courses between which is a blind segmental-headed recess on each face. Some bricks missing from NW corner, but otherwise sound. A concrete-lined flue enters at its base on S elevation.

Adjoining to south are the derelict remains of miscellaneous one- and two-storey buildings of steel-framed mass concrete and concrete blocks which may formerly have been part of a brick kiln (one building is lined with fire bricks and this quarry also contained clay deposits).

A short distance SE are the ruinous remains of steel-framed rubble masonry stone hoppers and a small mass-concrete bridge.

Set east of Moneybroom Road on the site of Knocknadona Quarry with the lime quarry/kilns to its south(HB19/03/065A).

Historical information

Although Knocknadona Quarry has been worked for limestone since the early 1800s (if not before), this chimney first appears on the 1971 OS 25-inch map. As it does not feature on the 1920 six-inch map, it must therefore have been built sometime in the intervening period. The Valuation revision books note William Belshaw as taking over the quarry c.1919. He also operated other quarries in this area and the chimney was probably erected by him in the 1920s or '30s. It may have been associated with what was possibly a brick kiln adjoining to the south. Operations ceased sometimes in the later 1900s.

References – Primary sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/63/1. First edition OS six-inch map, Co Antrim sheet 63 (1832).
2. PRONI OS/6/1/63/2. Second edition OS six-inch map, Co Antrim sheet 63 (1857).
3. PRONI VAL/12B/1/6A-E. Valuation revision books (1863-1923).
4. PRONI OS/10/1/63/12/1. First edition OS 25-inch map, Co Antrim sheet 63-12 (1901).
5. PRONI OS/6/1/63/4. Fourth edition OS six-inch map, Co Antrim sheet 63 (1920).
6. PRONI OS/11/164/4/1. OS 25-inch Irish Grid map, sheet 164 (1971).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A good example of a medium-sized, well-preserved brick industrial chimney, now increasingly rare in a rural context. Retaining its full height and brick embellished at the top, it is an architectural landmark and is of local historical interest as a reminder of past industry at this location. It also has group value with the lime kilns to the south (HB19/03/065A). As a masonry structure with no future use this structure is best protected through scheduling.

General comments

FILE PA'd 16/04/15