Moylinny Mill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 2-storey 5-bay building with attics, with a single storey block to one side. Main entrance faces west. Slated roof; basalt rubble walls; timber sashed windows.

SETTING: The building stands in its own grounds facing the river and set well back from the public road, reached by a long driveway.

Historical information

Precise date of original building not recorded but it appears on the OS map of 1832, part of a complex of buildings marked as a 'Paper Mill'; on the OS map of 1857 the complex was marked as 'Bleach Mill'. Reputedly originally built by the Reford family, it later was owned by the Chaine family, and then became the property of the York Street Flax Spinning Co Ltd. On the OS map of 1902 it was marked as 'Beetling Mill'. It was converted into a private house with the removal of its fittings and machinery, and the removal of its second storey, in 1964.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 50.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50.
3. OS Map 1902, Co Antrim 50.
4. Photographs of the building taken in 1964 in the possession of the owner in 2004.

Secondary Sources
1. IHR 5703.
2. Heather Thompson, Weaving Webs of Wealth (Antrim, 1982), pp 46-47.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a former mill of possibly late 18th century date, but at least early 19th century date, which has been reduced from 3 storeys and an attic to 2 storeys and an attic, and furthermore has had all its original mill fittings and machinery removed in the process of conversion to a house, with a consequent diminution of its original architectural and historic interest.