Millisle Old Mill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three storey disused corn mill of eighteenth century origin, on the S of the Mill Road in the NW corner of the village of Millisle.

The mill is rubble built, double gabled and roughly square in plan. It stands on the slope overlooking the mill race.

Much of the S section is covered in ivy, but some sections of walls still retain rough cast render.

Most of the former openings are now blocked, but there is a timber sheeted door(with three stone steps) on the N facade.

The gabled roof of the section to the N still has most of its Bangor blue slates, but the roof of the S section appears to have partly collapsed.

Nothing remains of the water wheel(s) or any of the external machinery.

On the S side of the mill race is the remains of a flax mill which once had an engine.

Not much of this building has survived and what remains is now part of a modern structure with a curved corrugated iron roof.

Historical information

This former corn mill probably dates from the mid eighteenth century and was originally the property of the Crommelin family. In May 1757 it was described in an advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter as ‘well slated and in good repair’.

In 1790 Robert Carmichael leased this mill (and a flour mill also in Millisle-now demolished) from Delacherois Crommelin for the term of three lives and forty-one years at a rent of £170(stg) per year. Some time after this (c.1801) Robert built an auxiliary windmill a short distance to the west.

To the south of the mill race a steam driven flax mill was constructed by David and William Carmichael in c.1860. At this stage also the brothers appear to have substantially renovated the corn mill. In March 1861 the steam engine in the flax mill exploded killing four men. The Carmichaels sold all their milling interests in Millisle c.1889 to a James Fulton.

When Fulton died in 1906 they passed to his brother-in-law, James Mitchell, whose family worked the corn mill until the 1950s. Since that time the building has remained largely derelict.

References- Primary sources
1 Linenhall Library 'Belfast News-Letter' 13 May 1757 [Microfilm copy].
2 PRONI VAL. 1B/32 Valuation records for the townland of Ballycopeland (Parish of Donaghadee) 1830s.
2 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st Edition 1833/4, Co. Down 7.
3 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st Revision 1858-60, Co. Down 7.
4 PRONI ‘Griffith’s’ valuation for the townland of Ballycopeland (Parish of Donaghadee) 1863.

Secondary sources
1 E.R.R. Green 'Industrial Archaeology of Co. Down' (HMSO 1963), pp.43, 53.
2 Grace Seymour 'Echoes of Millisle and district' (Rathfriland ?c.1983), pp.6-14 etc.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Three storey mid eighteenth century corn mill, probably renovated in c.1860, now disused and minus machinery but with building substantially intact.