6b 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.6b is part of a long-ish flax scutching mill of c.1860 attached to the rear of the lean to former engine house at the rear (SW) of the former water mill. It is gabled and one storey and was largely reconstructed recently.

The front SE facade now has a left of centre timber and glazed door with two timber casement windows (as former corn mill) to the left. To the right of this are two similar windows, then a pair of French doors, with a further casement window to the far right. All openings have brick flat arches.

The rear of this house has a gabled projection with French doors its NW (brick built) gable. To the NE face of the projection is a narrow eight pane window, with a similar window to the SW face, To the left of the projection is a casement window, as front, with a smaller eight pane window to its right. To the right of the projection is a glazed door, with a casement window (as front) to the right of this and a large flat arched ‘car’ opening to the far right. This opening leads to the front, where it has gate-like timber double doors. Brick dressings to rear openings.

The roof is pitched with Bangor blue slates, and five Velux windows and a brick chimney stack to the rear. There are cast iron rw goods. The rear of this house is built into a bank built into which are ‘rooms’ which once held the machinery associated with a tall square brick chimney stack on the higher ground directly behind this house. This room is now renovated and used mainly as stores. The face of the bank appears to have been finished in rubble but it is now mostly rendered and slightly ‘terraced’ or ‘stepped’.

Historical information

The earliest information the writers have uncovered concerning this grouping is a map dated 1777 from the Londonderry Papers at PRONI. This map states that at this stage the lands of Cunningburn were part of the estate of Alexander Stewart, the then owner of the Mount Stewart estate and father of the future Marquis of Londonderry. The map shows the thatched cottage, the corn mill and what appears to be the kiln house. There is another house shown slightly to the NW of the kiln house, which may correspond to the site of a building which was demolished in fairly recent times or to the site of the present single storey building to the NW 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 implies was then under the supervision of miller W. Harris. Some distance to the north of the grouping at this stage there was a flax mill, which was also powered by the ‘Cunning Burn’, as was the corn mill.

The next map of the complex dates from 1829, it shows the same buildings as that of 1777, as does the first OS Map of 1834, however, by this date there was a windmill further to the NW and another corn mill to the south west of the townland, near the coast of Strangford Lough. By the 1830s we also know that possession of the corn mill and the flax mill further to the north of the townland had passed to one John Cooper and that the corn mill had a wheel 12 feet in diameter and 2.5 feet in breadth, and that the fall of water was 5 feet. It was also noted in the 1830s OS Memoirs, that ‘there is 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 NW had been built, wind power acting as an auxiliary to water power.

The revised OS Map of c.1858-60 shows the that the house on the opposite side of the lane from the thatched cottage (House No.2) had been built by this stage. Just to the south east of the kiln house there was another building at this stage also. This particular structure survived into fairly recent times and is remembered by older local residents as once serving as a shop. Interestingly 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, thus dating this entire section to post c.1858. This section may date from the 1860s, a period when linen production increased, mainly due to the down turn in cotton production as a result of the American Civil War.

The flax mill ceased production in 1894 and the corn mill in c.1932 and during the Second World War the flow of water to the mill pond (directly behind [N] the thatched cottage), was halted. After this date much of the grouping served as animal houses and gradually fell into neglect. Much of the complex was in the late 1980s and since then has been converted into dwelling houses. At this point (February 1998) only the former corn mill remains to be fully converted, but it is hoped that this will be completed soon.

References- Primary sources

1 PRONI Londonderry Papers D.654/M24/1 ‘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’.
2 PRONI Londonderry Papers D.654/M24/6 ‘Map of the lands and mills of Cunningburn...November 1829...by David Geddas’.
3 PRONI Londonderry Papers D.654/D24/1 Deed of partition concerning three mills in Cunningburn- John Cooper, Thomas Robson, William Cooper- 2 October 1830. [See also D.654/D24/2 Mortgage for £1,000, John Echlin and George Hamilton to Patrick Savage- 11 March 1763.]
4 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Down 11.
5 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 104.

6 PRONI VAL 1B/34 1st valuation, Newtownards c.1835.
7 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Revision, c.1860, Down 11.
8 PRONI 2nd valuation, Newtownards, c.1863.

Secondary sources
1 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards', p.228.
2 Trevor McCavery 'Newtown- A history of Newtownards' (Dundonald, 1999), pp.41, 78,138.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
C. Ornamentation
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Picturesque grouping of dwellings many of which are recently converted 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. The former corn mill of 1776 is undoubtedly the most noteworthy building in the whole group. The thatched cottage is probably the oldest building on the entire site, proably predating the mill building.