Windmill Stump, off Belfast Road, Ballyrogan, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT23

Windmill Stump

This is a small rubble-constructed windmill stump of probable early nineteenth century origin, situated on a hill to the south of Belfast Road, approximately 1.5 miles northwest of Newtownards. The stump is built in rubble stone with remains of render and coping to its parapet. It measures roughly 6.5 metres in height by 3.75 metres in diameter. A ground-level doorway opens to the southeast, with a window opening directly above it.

The mill is recorded on the Ordnance Survey Maps of 1833-34 and 1858-60, where it is referred to as a 'flax windmill' on the later map. It may correspond to the 'windmill for flax' in Ballyrogan townland mentioned in the Ordnance Survey memoirs of circa 1833. The land on which the mill stood belonged to a Hugh Millican according to valuation records of that period, though the mill itself is not mentioned in these documents.

Local tradition suggests the mill was once used for pumping water and was at the centre of a dispute between the Bradshaw family and Lord Londonderry concerning water rights sometime during the 1790s or early 1800s, though this attribution is likely erroneous, as the dispute probably concerned Bradshaw's flax mill at Kiltonga rather than this mill, which does not appear to have been a Bradshaw possession.

In the mid-twentieth century the stump was converted into a small holiday dwelling, but it has been abandoned in recent years and is now derelict. A short distance to the northwest stands a dolmen-like grouping of large stones, though it remains uncertain whether this is a natural formation or man-made construction. On the 1833-34 map, another windmill stump is shown a short distance to the east of this mill.