Former Mill, 6c Cunningburn Road, Cunningburn, Newtownards, Co Down, BT22 2AR

Former Water-Powered Corn Mill, 1776

This is a rubble-built former water-powered corn mill dating from 1776, situated in a hollow approximately one mile north-west of the Mount Stewart estate, near Newtownards, County Down. It is the most architecturally and historically significant building within a picturesque group of dwellings, many of which are recently converted structures formerly associated with corn milling and flax scutching. At the time of recording (February 1998), the former mill was the last building in the group still undergoing conversion to residential use. The building is unrendered throughout and of vernacular character, and is of considerable industrial archaeological interest.

The mill is split-level in plan and sits slightly to the south-west of a thatched cottage on the same site. On the north-east (front) façade there is a doorway with stone dressings. To its left are three window openings fitted with recently installed timber casement windows. To the right of the doorway is a slightly larger opening set at a low level, also with stone dressings, which was probably originally a small door but had been filled with a timber window with Georgian-style panes at the time of survey. Above this window is an inscribed stone bearing the text 'AD 1776 W. HARRIS MILLER', recording the year of construction and the name of the miller then in charge. To the right of this window, the earth has been excavated to reveal more of the wall below window level, in which there is a crudely fashioned, presumably unfinished, opening.

The north-west gable is two storeys. The upper level has a casement window similar to those on the front elevation. The lower level formerly housed the water wheel; the wheel itself has been removed, but the arched opening for the axle survives intact. This gable merges with the side of a full-height lean-to extension, also built of rubble, which appears to date from around the 1860s and once housed an engine. There is a large unfinished opening to the ground level of this lean-to. The south-east gable of the main building is blank.

On the rear elevation, the left half is taken up by the lean-to former engine house, which has a large flat-arched opening at ground level on its south-east face. The upper level of the right half of the original mill has two casement windows, matching those on the front. At ground level is a large opening with a segmental arch head and stone dressings, the keystone of which is inscribed '1776 BT. BY. A. S.'. There is a small square opening to the right of this arch.

The gabled roof was in the process of being covered in Bangor blue slates at the time of survey, and carries a small brick chimney stack to the south-east. A similar stack is present on the roof of the former engine house.

Historical Context

The earliest documentary evidence for this group of buildings is a map dated 1777, held in the Londonderry Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), drawn by David Geddas on 27 January of that year. This map confirms that the lands of Cunningburn were at that time part of the estate of Alexander Stewart, then owner of Mount Stewart and father of the future Marquis of Londonderry. The map shows the thatched cottage, the corn mill, and what appears to be a kiln house. It also indicates another house slightly to the north-west of the kiln house, which may correspond to either a building demolished in relatively recent times or to the site of a present single-storey structure to the north-west of the tall chimney, used as a store at the time of survey. The corn mill had been built by Alexander Stewart the year before this map was drawn, and was then under the management of miller W. Harris, as the datestone confirms. Some distance to the north of the group, a flax mill also existed at this time, likewise powered by the Cunning Burn.

A second map of the complex, also by David Geddas and also held in the Londonderry Papers, dates from November 1829 and shows the same buildings as the 1777 map. The first Ordnance Survey map of 1834 similarly records the same layout, though by that date a windmill had been constructed further to the north-west, and another corn mill lay to the south-west of the townland, near the coast of Strangford Lough. By the 1830s, ownership of the corn mill and the flax mill to the north had passed to one John Cooper. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s record that the corn mill's water wheel was 12 feet in diameter and 2.5 feet in breadth, with a fall of water of 5 feet. The Memoirs also note 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', which likely explains why the windmill to the north-west had been constructed, wind power serving as an auxiliary to water power.

The revised Ordnance Survey map of approximately 1858 to 1860 shows that a house on the opposite side of the lane from the thatched cottage had been built by that stage, and that another building had appeared just to the south-east of the kiln house. This latter structure survived into relatively recent times and is remembered by older local residents as having once served as a shop. Significantly, the flax scutching mill and store — together with the associated engine house and tall chimney to the rear of the corn mill — had not yet been built by the time of the revised map, which dates this entire section of the complex to after approximately 1858. It is possible that this section was erected in the 1860s, a period when linen production increased significantly, largely due to the decline of cotton production caused by the American Civil War.

The flax mill ceased production in 1894, and the corn mill fell out of use around 1932. During the Second World War, the flow of water to the mill pond — situated directly behind, that is to the north of, the thatched cottage — was stopped. After this, much of the complex came to serve as animal housing and gradually fell into disrepair. The greater part of the site was purchased in the late 1980s and has since been converted into dwelling houses, with the former corn mill the last remaining building awaiting full conversion at the time of the survey in February 1998.

Primary sources consulted include PRONI Londonderry Papers D.654/M24/1 (map of 1777), D.654/M24/6 (map of 1829), D.654/D24/1 (deed of partition, 1830), PRONI Ordnance Survey maps (1st edition 1834 and 1st revision c.1860, Down sheet 11), PRONI VAL 1B/34 (first valuation, Newtownards, c.1835), PRONI second valuation Newtownards c.1863, and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol. 7 (edited by Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams, QUB 1991), p.104. Secondary sources include A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan, Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II — The Ards, p.228, and Trevor McCavery, Newtown — A History of Newtownards (Dundonald, 1999), pp.41, 78, 138.