Old Windmill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Ruined stump of a large five storey windmill of 1796, perched on a hill top, E of Mountain Road, c.1.5 miles N of Portaferry.

Constructed in random rubble and rendered, the ruin stands roughly 10.5m. in height, 5.5m in diameter with c.1m walls. There are openings for small windows on each of the uppers floors (roughly four per floor), with cast iron frames still in place in two openings. Some timber beams and uprights, for supporting floors/machinery, are still in place and three granite millstones also still within ruin.

Now over grown ruins of small (steam) engine house to the south east of the mill and similarly overgrown remnants of a former scutch mill (c.14m x 4.5m) to the north. Opening on south east side of mill probably for drive of steam engine.

Historical information

According to local knowledge, this mill was constructed in 1796 by local farmer Pat Keown with the help of builders employed by the Commissioners for Irish Lights, who were in the County working on South Rock Light House for the Marquis of Downshire.

Originally solely wind powered this mill was, by the 1830s, according to the Ordinance Survey Memoirs, also driven by a ‘steam engine of about 30 horse power, in connection with which there is a chimney of brick between 90 and 100 feet in height’. The cap of the mill was blown off in the Great Wind of January 1839, when four sheep sheltering inside, were killed.

According to local historians, the premises were used as place for making potato crisps for a short period during the early twentieth century. The mill was stripped at the beginning of the Second World War, when the engine was taken for scrap, however, demolition of the building was forbidden by the Admiralty as the tower was a marker on navigation charts.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/3/25/1 OS maps, 1st ed., 1834, Down sheet 25
2 'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II', ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams
(QUB 1991), p.4
2 PRONI VAL/1B/36 1st valuation, Parish of Ardquin, 1838
3 PRONI OS/6/3/25/2 OS maps, 1st rev, 1860, Down sheet 25
4 PRONI Second ('Griffith's') valuation, 1861 [In print.]
5 PRONI OS/6/3/25/3 OS maps, 2nd ed., 1899-1900, Down sheet 25

Secondary sources
1 E.R.R. Green, 'The Industrial Archaeology of County Down' (HMSO Belfast, 1963), p.57
2 G. Philip Bell, C.E.B. Brett, Sir Robert Matthew, Ulster Architectural Heritage Survey: Portaferry & Strangford
(Belfast UAHS 1969), p.20
3 Dr. F. Duff, "Windmills around Portaferry and District" in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No.1' (1977),
pp. 13-15
4 Harry Murray, Willie Neilson & William McMullan, "W. & A. McMullan" in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.10'
(1986), p. 10.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Ruined stump of a large five storey windmill constructed in 1796.