150 Woodburn Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached multi-bay two-storey rendered house, built c.1820, set on an L-plan facing south with a four-bay two-storey wing to the east and an entrance portico with glazed lean-to room above. Detached three-bay two-storey redbrick outbuilding to northeast with a further detached two-bay three-storey former mill building to the east.

House:
Hipped artificial slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, several rendered and redbrick chimneystacks with terracotta pots. Timber bargeboards to two east-facing gables, overhanging eaves with cast-iron rainwater goods.

Painted ruled-and-lined rendered walling with a plat-band above ground floor level.

Square-headed window openings with painted stone sills and timber casement windows. Camber-headed window openings to the east range, painted stone sills and horizontally-glazed two-over-two timber sash windows. Rectangular-plan bay to south elevation with square-headed window openings and timber casement windows. Some uPVC windows to the rear north elevation.

Single-storey gabled entrance porch to the east elevation of the east wing with natural slate roof, roll-moulded ridge tiles, timber bargeboard, two-over-two timber sash window and a square-headed door opening to the north with vertically-sheeted timber door.

Mill buildings:
Adjacent to the east wing of the house is a three-bay two-storey redbrick former mill building, with a further two-bay three-storey whitewashed former mill building located further to the east fronting onto Woodburn Road, both buildings connected by a tall rubblestone boundary wall running along the road.

Redbrick building;
Pitched artificial slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and cast-iron rainwater goods. Redbrick walling laid in English garden wall bond with some whitewash remaining. Camber-headed window openings formed in rubbered brick with stone sills and horizontally-glazed timber sash windows.

East mill building;
Pyramidal natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and cast-iron rainwater goods to redbrick eaves, surmounted by an iron weather vane. Lean-to natural slate roofs to north and east with a further lean-to natural slate roof to tall boundary wall.
Whitewashed rough-cast lime rendered walling, three iron rings at lintel-level to all four elevations.
Square-headed window openings with timber louvers to the upper floor, vertically-sheeted door to the first and ground floors and timber casement windows to the ground floor.

The redbrick mill building to the northeast rises out of a rubblestone wall running along the Woodburn river which forms the boundary to the complex to the north. The wall encloses a yard and continues to Woodburn Road meeting the east mill complex. Occupying an elevated site with landscaped grounds to the south a bitmac drive exits the site to the east with a pair of pebbledash rendered piers and low pebbledash rendered wall enclosing the easternmost corner of the site.

Historical information

OS maps of 1832 and 1857 show a ‘Bleaching Mill’ on the site, which Griffith’s Valuation records as being leased by Henry Bragg from Stewart Dunne (Dunne’s residence ‘Farm Hill’ (HB22/04/004) is located further down the Woodburn Road). Griffith’s lists the property as a ‘muslin bleach green, manager’s house and land’.

Valuation Revisions record that in 1869 the ‘[Mill] buildings are nearly down’. 1884-1894 revisions record a ‘house and land’, the building valued at £1.5s. The complex was bought by the Belfast Water Commisioners in 1869 and they retained ownership until selling to the current owner in 1992. At the turn of the century a man called Reilly who was an employee of the Belfast Water Commissioners resided in the property until the 1920's. Offices are added in 1910, and the property valuation is revised from £1.5s to £7 in 1913. The third edition OS map of 1902 does not show the extensive mill building parallel to the main house. Only part of the mill, therefore, remains on the site today.

References:

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/1/52/1 -First Edition OS Map (1832)
2.PRONI OS/6/1/52/2 -Second Edition OS Map (1857)
3.PRONI OS/6/1/52/3 -Third Edition OS Map (1901-2)
4.PRONI VAL/2/B/1/22 -Griffith’s Valuation (1859)
5.PRONI VAL/2/A/1/57 -Griffith’s Valuation Map (1857)
6.PRONI VAL/12/B/7/5A-F -Valuation Revisions (1861-1894)
7.PRONI VAL/12/B/7/6A-D -Valuation Revisions (1894-1929)
8.Boyle, J. OS Memoirs, Parishes of Co. Antrim XIV, Vol 37 (1832, 1839-40)

Secondary Sources

1 Current owner (2009)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

The remains of a bleaching mill complex dating from the early nineteenth century, comprising a multi-bay two storey manager's house, and associated mill buildings of traditional brick and rubble stone construction. Although historic maps show that the main part of the mill has not survived, the complex retains much historic fabric intact. It represents rural industry in the Carrickfergus area. Prominently located by the roadside in an unspoiled rural setting, the mill and associated house form an attractive group.