Old Mill House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The Old mill house is a two storey rubble built formal gabled house of c.1752. It adjoins the Old mill complex, a former bleach works (and then a corn mill), of the same date. The former mill now houses a shop and restaurant and the house appears to be currently used as the store for the restaurant, but is in the process of being renovated and looks as through it may become part of the restaurant itself.

The whole ‘T’ shaped complex is siutated just to the N of the Belfast Road less than one mile E of Dundonald.

The front W facade has a central ‘Ards’ doorway with ‘blocked’ (Gibbs-like) pilasters and architrave with keystone all surrounding a timber sheeted door and semicircular fanlight. To the left of the doorway are two windows with plain rendered surrounds and modern frames, with two similar to the right and five (evenly spaced) to the first floor.

The N gable is blank.

To the S the house is attached to the former mill building. The rear now appears to be blank, except for a door to the ground floor right. There is a small lean to section to the left at first floor level which spans across a gap between the rear of the house and the ground to the level to the E which is much higher than the ground level immediately surrounding the rear of the house.

The facade is now unrendered but looks as though it was rendered in the past. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates with stone parapets and two brick chimney stacks. There is a extractor duct jutting through the roof at the rear.

Historical information

On the mill building attached to the south side of this house is a simple carved stone plaque which reads ‘Hugh Barnett Merchant in Belfast 1752’, 1752 being the year in which this whole complex appears to have been built. In 1757, James Barnett, Hugh’s son and heir, let the (bleach) mill, his advertisement mentioning the ‘good dwelling house all new and slated’. The house is shown on the first edition OS Map of 1834. By this time the whole site was in possession of William Stitt of Comber, with contemporary valuation records year making note of the dwelling house. In c.1850 the mill had been converted to handling corn by its new proprietor, a Newtownards baker named Munce. Corn milling continued until the 1920s, with the miller living in the house. In 1987/88 the former mill buildings were converted to a shop and restaurant. The house in part at least now serves as a store for the rest the restaurant kitchen.

The ‘Ards’ door surround of this house may be a later addition (?perhaps c.1830).

For more information concerning the mill buildings see ref. HB24/11/026.

References- Primary sources
1 Linenhall Library Belfast News-Letter, 1757, 1773. [The BNL contains Barnett’s advertisement of 1757.]
2 PRONI D.654/LE/27 Londonderry Papers- Leases relating to Killarn townland, 1750-[?].
3 PRONI VAL 1B/322 p.37 1st Valuation, parish of Newtownards, townland of Killarn, 1833.
4 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down sheet 5.
5 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), pp. 65, 110.
6 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st rev. 1858-60, Co. Down sheet 5.
7 PRONI 2nd (‘Griffith’s’) valuation, parish of Newtownards, townland of Killarn.

Secondary sources
1 E.R.R. Green 'The industrial archaeology of Co. Down' (HMSO 1963), p.29.
2 Peter Car 'The most unpretending of places- a history of Dundonald' (Dundonald 1987), pp.98-99.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Small, two storey rubble-built formal house of 1752, with a gabled roof and ‘Ards’ doorway, attached to a former mill of similar vintage. Modern window frames have been inserted and the layout appears to have been altered.