62 Nutts Corner Road, Crumlin, County Antrim, BT29 4SJ

62 Nutts Corner Road, Crumlin: Former Miller's House

This is a long, single-storey vernacular dwelling of pre-1832 construction, formerly the miller's house associated with Gredin Mill. The building stands on an overgrown site at the end of a narrow lane roughly 3.5 kilometres east of Crumlin, with the adjacent mill buildings positioned on slightly higher ground to the east and south-east, connected by a concrete stair accommodating the difference in levels.

The house retains much of its original external appearance and vernacular form, though its interior was substantially altered during the mid-twentieth century and the original roof construction has been lost. The facade was somewhat formalised around 1920. The front (east) elevation features a projecting flat-roofed porch to the right of centre, with a flat-headed panelled and part-glazed door. Either side are flat-headed window openings with narrow render surrounds; frames are 2/2 sash windows with horizontal astragals and cut stone sills. The south and north gables are blank, with the north side heavily overgrown. The rear (west) facade has three flat-headed window openings with narrow rendered surrounds; frames are mixed, comprising 3/3 and 2/2 sash windows and one casement, all timber with cut stone sills. The pitched roof is sheeted with corrugated iron with galvanised metal rainwater goods. Two rendered chimneystack astride the ridge each bear a simple corbelled cap and clay pots. Front and rear walls are faced with roughcast render; the gables are unrendered, revealing rubble field stone construction. A stone-lined well with metal covering stands to the east side.

The associated mill is part two-storey, part single-storey construction, with a southern projection now removed and two part-ruinous projections to the north rear face. The pitched roof is slated with some crude repairs in corrugated iron. Walls are rubble field stone with mostly segmental-headed openings, some dressed with red clay brick. The remains of a much-overgrown water wheel are visible at the west end.

The 1832 Ordnance Survey map shows a building of matching size and orientation on this site, part of the small group of structures marked 'Gredin Mill'. An October 1835 valuation recorded the house as an old thatched dwelling in good condition, measuring 45 feet by 18 feet by 6 feet high. At that time George Cunningham occupied the concern, which comprised a corn mill (29 by 21½ by 13 feet) with two pairs of stones for shelling and grinding and one set of fans and sifters, operated 12 hours daily for six months yearly; kilns measuring 43 by 21 by 13 feet and 14 by 15 by 11 feet; and a flax mill to the south-east (29 by 17 by 13 feet) with three stocks and a breaking machine, worked 10½ hours daily for four months yearly. The 1838 Ordnance Survey memoirs describe the corn mill as propelled by a breast water wheel 14 feet in diameter by 2 feet 3 inches in breadth with an 8-foot fall, though machinery was noted as in very bad repair; a subsequent entry gives the wheel diameter as 18 feet, matching that of the flax mill. By the second valuation around 1860, the property was held by James Fleming under an 1834 lease from the Pakenham estate of Langford Lodge, with recorded dimensions unchanged except the flax mill was no longer worked and classed merely as an office. In 1868 the house and corn mill passed to John Fleming; by 1879 the mill had become vacant with its rateable value falling from £25 to £10. Both mills appear to have been brought back into use by Samuel Williamson, who took over the lease in 1883, though their capacity was limited: by 1901 only two of the flax mill's four stocks were worked four months yearly, whilst the corn mill was worked intermittently for roughly one month per year. Fire gutted the flax mill in 1909, and by 1911 the corn mill was recorded as disused with its wheel in ruins and machinery gone, its rateable value falling to £3-10-0. The Williamson family continued to occupy the former miller's house; John Williamson succeeded Samuel in 1925 and remained there until at least 1972. The building itself appears to have been formalised in the early 1900s, with window openings regularised, a porch added, and the original thatch covering replaced with corrugated iron.

Though of historic and industrial archaeological interest, the building and associated mill complex, having lost some original detailing and with the mill in poor condition, are not considered of sufficient architectural interest to merit listing.