Former Drumcairne Mill, Loughgall Road, Armagh, BT61 7NN

Former Drumcairne Mill

This former spinning mill complex on Loughgall Road, on the northern outskirts of Armagh, retains its original and architecturally most impressive structure despite the demolition of much of the surrounding complex. The surviving four-and-a-half-storey mill building of 1863–64, one of the few large-scale pieces of industrial heritage to survive in the Armagh vicinity, remains largely original both inside and out, including its impressive red brick chimney.

The mill is a large, imposing limestone-built rectangular structure with a slated hipped roof set with regularly spaced rooflights. The walls are constructed in limestone rubble with dressed stone quoins and brick surrounds to the openings. The south-facing front façade is articulated with two full-height toilet towers set symmetrically, one to either side. The entrance door is positioned at the far right side of ground floor level, with a semi-circular headed opening and brick dressings. The timber panelled double doors are slightly recessed and surmounted by a fanlight with geometric pattern. Fenestration is strictly regimented throughout, with segmental-headed window openings featuring brick dressings and cut stone sills. Window frames are metal with multiple panes and top openers, though many openings are now partially or fully bricked up. A crudely conceived steel external fire escape is positioned to the left side. The west façade is blank at ground floor, while the north façade includes a large, utilitarian, full-width single-storey flat-roofed extension in its present late twentieth-century form. At first floor on the north façade, one opening is enlarged and was used as a loading bay, with a projecting lifting beam.

The mill was constructed during 1863–64 by Jacob Orr, son of Joseph Orr whose firm Joseph Orr & Sons had established a linen mill at Cranagill near Loughgall around 1840. The building was recorded in progress with three storeys completed during the second valuation of Armagh City in 1863–64, and appears to have been complete by the end of 1864. It originally consisted of the surviving large four-storey block along with a smaller two-storey section to the immediate south-west, now demolished. Orr struggled commercially; by 1866–67 the rateable valuation was reduced from £300 to £250 due to the mill not being fully worked with only one steam engine in use. The mill was idle by 1872 and in the hands of the Provincial Bank, which put it up for auction in April that year. It was acquired by Isaac Murphy and Charles Reynolds, who had two engines working by 1875 and added large buildings to the north-east and south-west of the original block over 1875–76, raising the rateable valuation from £253 in 1874 to £343 in 1875, £398 by 1876, and £409 by 1880. Abraham Wilson purchased the mill in 1884, and a manager's house was added to the complex that year. By 1900 two long terraces of mill workers' houses, known as 'Mill Row', had been built immediately north-east of the site. The business was recorded under the ownership of Armagh Spinning Company Ltd in 1916. Like many textile mills, it suffered during the Depression of the 1930s and was noted as 'at rest' in 1936. Passing to Hale, Martin & Co. in the mid to late 1930s, it remained operational until sometime in the 1960s under the control of Ulster Ring Spinners Ltd. The complex was subsequently converted to a shoe manufactory, 'Armagh Shoes', which operated until the mid-1980s. In the latter decades of the twentieth century much of the complex, as well as the mill workers' houses, were demolished. The yard surrounding the original mill building is now used as a commercial vehicle and machinery sales outlet.