Old Windmill, Ballyherly, Portaferry, Co Down

Old Windmill, Ballyherly, Portaferry

This is the ruined stump of a large five-storey windmill built in 1796, situated on a hilltop east of Mountain Road, approximately 1.5 miles north of Portaferry. The structure was constructed from random rubble rendered with mortar and now stands to a height of roughly 10.5 metres, measuring about 5.5 metres in diameter with walls approximately 1 metre thick. Small windows pierce each of the upper floors, roughly four per floor, with cast iron frames still surviving in two of the openings. Timber beams and uprights supporting the floors and machinery remain in place within the ruin, along with three granite millstones.

According to local tradition, the mill was constructed by a local farmer, Pat Keown, with assistance from builders employed by the Commissioners for Irish Lights, who were working in the county on South Rock Light House for the Marquis of Downshire. Originally powered solely by wind, by the 1830s the mill had been fitted with a steam engine of approximately 30 horse power, accompanied by a brick chimney between 90 and 100 feet in height, as recorded in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs. The cap of the mill was blown off during the Great Wind of January 1839, when four sheep sheltering inside were killed. In the early twentieth century, the premises were briefly used for making potato crisps. The engine was removed for scrap at the beginning of the Second World War, though the Admiralty forbade demolition of the tower as it served as a marker on navigation charts.

To the south-east stand the overgrown ruins of a small steam engine house, and to the north are similarly overgrown remnants of a former scutch mill measuring approximately 14 metres by 4.5 metres. An opening on the south-east side of the mill probably accommodated the drive of the steam engine.