10 Cunningburn Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Cunningburn Mill is a group of houses picturesquely situated in a hollow roughly 1 mile NW of the Mount Stewart estate. Some of the houses are converted mill related buildings and almost all have been renovated/converted recently.

No.10 is situated at the N end of the grouping. It is a long single storey gabled building consisting of a house and a shed. The house takes up most of the building to the N and was probably originally two houses.

Its front S facade has a timber sheeted stable door to the left with a sash window, with ‘Georgian’ panes. There are four similar windows to the right of this, then another stable door, with a further window to the far right. All of this house section has a thatched roof to the front.

To the E gable there is a small slated lean to section with a small dilapidated sash window. There is a low, partly harled, wall to the front of the house section. The section of the building to the S has a Bangor blue slated roof with two timber sheeted doors to the S facade and a sash window, with ‘Georgian’ panes to the far right (this window now belongs to the house).

The W gable of this ‘shed’ section is blank. The rear of this entire building is cluttered and messy. The house section appears to have been slightly extended at the rear in lean-to fashion and now has a large modern window, but the rear of the shed section is largely obscured by dog kennels and other structures (including a curious tower-like structure) and all that could be discerned was a small eight pane window and a small gabled projection.

The rear of the roof of the house section is covered in corrugated asbestos and there are three rendered chimney stacks. The front facade of the entire building is rendered but, from what could be observed, some render has come away at the rear. This building is probably the oldest of the whole grouping and is certainly pre-1776 and probably much older.

A piece of oak from the building analysed by the dendrochronology guys at Queens which suggest an earlier construction date of around 1700.

Historical information

The earliest known documentation regarding the grouping to which this house belongs is a map drawn up in 1777, when the townland of Cunningburn was part of the estate of Alexander Stewart of Mount Stewart, the father of the future Marquis of Londonderry. The map shows what appears to be the dwelling itself, the corn mill, and what may be the kiln house. There is another house shown slightly to the northwest of the kiln house, which appears to correspond to the site of a building which was demolished in fairly recent times, or perhaps to the site of the present single storey structure to the northwest of the tall chimney, now used as a store.

The corn mill had been built ‘by’ Alexander Stewart the year before this map was drawn up, and, as the date stone tells us, it was originally placed under the supervision of miller W. Harris. Some distance to the north of the grouping at this point there was a flax mill, which, like the corn mill was powered by the ‘Cunning Burn’.

The next map of the complex dates from 1829, which shows an arrangement of buildings much as that of 1777. The first edition OS Map of 1834 shows the same layout, however, by this date there was a windmill further to the northwest, and another corn mill to the southwest of the townland, near the coast of Strangford Lough.

By 1835 possession of the corn mill, and the flax mill further to the north, had passed to a John Cooper and a Thomas Robinson. According to the contemporary OS Memoirs the corn mill had a water wheel 12 feet in diameter and 2½ft in breadth, with a fall of water of 5ft, but that there that was ‘not a sufficiency of water in the summer season and the little there is said to be frequently cut off before it reaches the mills’. It was probably because of this insufficiency that the windmill to the northwest had been built, wind power acting as an auxiliary to water power. The valuation returns of 1836 record the miller’s house, corn mill, kiln, a ‘kiln man’s house’. From the valuers notations, it is clear that they regarded the miller’s house as at least twenty years old, but that it was in good order, as the relatively respectable rateable value of
£3-19-6 testifies.

The revised OS Map of c.1858-60 shows the that the house on the opposite side of the lane from the miller’s residence (House No.2) had been built by this stage, and, just to the southeast of the kiln house, another new building had also appeared. The latter structure survived into fairly recent times and is remembered by older local residents as once serving as a shop. The flax scutching mill and store, (with the associated engine house and tall chimney), to the rear of the corn mill, had not been built by this time. It appears to have been constructed a few years later, and may be the ‘flax steam mill’ mentioned in the valuation of 1861. Unfortunately, the valuation of 1861 contains very little detailed information regarding the buildings on the site, other than stating that the miller’s house was ‘thatched and slated’, the corn mill had two pairs of stones (one for grinding the other for shelling), that the flax mill’s steam engine had an output of 16hp and that the lease of the complex had passed to Hugh Cooper, with a one third share in the hands of John Robinson.

Some time around the mid 1870s the lease of the complex was acquired by David and John Warden. The flax mill ceased production in 1894, and the corn mill in c.1932. During the Second World War the flow of water to the mill pond (directly behind the house), was halted. After this date much of the grouping served as animal houses and gradually fell into neglect. The miller’s house continued in use, being subdivided to serve as two dwellings in the early part of the 20th century, but later restored to a single property once again, which continues to be occupied by a descendant of the Wardens. Much of the complex outside of the miller’s house was purchased by the present owner in the late 1980s who since then has set about converting much of the grouping to dwelling houses. At the time of writing (February 1998) only the former corn mill remains to be fully converted, but the owner hopes that this will be completed soon.

References-

Primary sources
1 PRONI D.654/M24/1 Londonderry Papers ‘A Map of several farms in the townland of Cunningburn, Parish of New-town Ards, County Down, part of the estate of Alexander Stewart Esq...by David Geddas..January 27 1777’ (1777)
2 PRONI D.654/M24/6 Londonderry Papers ‘Map of the lands and mills of Cunningburn...November 1829...by David Geddas’ (1829)
3 PRONI D.654/D24/1 Londonderry Papers Deed of partition concerning three mills in Cunningburn- John Cooper, Thomas Robson, William Cooper- 2 October 1830. (1830) [See also D.654/D24/2 Mortgage for £1,000, John Echlin and George Hamilton to Patrick Savage- 11 March 1763]
4 PRONI VAL/1A/3/11 OS Map, County Down sheet 11, with valuation
references (1834-c.38)
5 PRONI VAL/1B/ First valuation, Newtownards (1836)
6 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II’, ed. Angelique Day and PatrickMcWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 104 (1836)
7 PRONI VAL/2A/3/11A OS Map, County Down sheet 11, with valuation references (1858 / 60-c.61)
8 PRONI VAL/2B/3/6A Second valuation, Newtownards (1861)
9 PRONI VAL/12B/23/21A-E Annual valuation revision books, Newtownards etc. (c.1864-c.1929)

Secondary sources
1 Green, E.R.R., ‘Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’, (Belfast HMSO, 1963), pp.39, 54
2 Hughes, A.J. and Hannan, R.J., ‘Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards’ p.228
3 Hamond, Fred, ‘Notes on the Cunningburn mill complex’ (1988) [In the Monuments and Buildings Record, Waterman House, Hill St., Belfast]
4 McCavery, Trevor, Newtown- ‘A history of Newtownards’ (Dundonald, 1996), pp.41, 78,138.
5 Brett, C.E.B., ‘The Buildings of North County Down’ (Belfast, 2002), pp.237, 238

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Cunningburn Mill is a group of houses picturesqyely situated in a hollow roughly 1 mile NW of the Mount Stewart estate. Many of the dwellings which have been recently converted are former structures associated with corn milling and flax scutching. All of these buildings have largely preserved their original exteriors, but their interiors have been altered although this has been carried out in sympathy with the original feel of the structures. This thatched cottage is probably the oldest building on the entire site, probably predating the mill building.