The Mill House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large three storey gabled house on the E side of Main Street, Millisle.

Front W facade has central elliptical arched doorway with panelled door, four pane fanlight and sidelights (with patterned glass). Simple surround to doorway. Window to left of door with modern timber frame, with one to left with similar frame. Three similar windows to the first floor, but with centre opening slightly shorter. Second floor has three squat windows with modern frames.

The N gable has a single storey extension (with monopitched roof) attached to the ground floor level. This extension has a castellated parapet to the W (front). To the attic level of this gable are two small two pane windows.

S gable has two similar attic level windows with a slightly larger (but similar) window to the right on the first floor.

In the centre of the rear elevation is a two storey gabled return with two modern windows to the first floor rear gable and a large PVC conservatory to the ground floor.

To the N facade of the return is a large-ish modern kitchen window to the left on the first floor with a small six pane window to the far right. To the far right on the first floor (near the eaves) is a tiny four pane window. To the S facade of the return is a modern rear door (with gabled porch ‘hood’ over). To the left side of the return (on the rear facade of the main house) is a large multi sided and multi paned bay window to the ground floor. Directly above this (‘resting’ on the flat roof of the bay) is a large (elliptical) arched window opening, with modern ‘casement’ frame. To the second floor (to the eaves) is a broad window with modern multi pane frame.

The entire facade is finished in plain render with chamfered quoins to the front facade.

The main and return roofs are pitched with Bangor blue slates and [?] stone parapets. Two rendered gable chimney stacks to main house, one to the gable of the return.

Low, rendered boundary wall to front and insignificant remains of former corn mill to the S.

Historical information

According to the present owner, this house was built in 1824 by the locally prominent mill owner David Carmichael. Owing to the former presence (to the immediate south) of one of his corn mills, the house became known locally as ‘The Mill House’. The mill was demolished in the mid twentieth century and the house itself was entirely renovated in the 1970s.

Somewhat oddly, though the OS Memoirs of c.1834 mention seven two storey houses within Millisle, no mention is made of a three storey dwelling.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL 1B/32 Valuation records for the townland of Ballymacruise (Parish of Donaghadee) 1830s.
2 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st Edition 1833/4, Co. Down 7.
3 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 50.
4 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st Revision 1858-60, Co. Down 7.
5 PRONI ‘Griffith’s’ valuation for the townland of Ballymacruise (Parish of Donaghadee) 1863.
6 UFTM W.A. Green Collection WAG 3485 Photograph of the old flour mill from the shore.]

Secondary sources
1 Grace Seymour 'Echoes of Millisle and district' (Rathfriland ?c.1983), pp.6-13 etc.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large three storey house of the 1820s, somewhat ‘modernised’ in recent times and now with modern window frames and a greatly altered, and now totally inappropriate, interior.