Mill Court, 17 Castlewellan Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 4AX

Mill Court is a mid-19th century former yarn and linen warehouse complex situated between the west side of Castlewellan Road and the River Bann in Banbridge, County Down. It was almost certainly built between 1837 and 1854, and consists of two main elements: a three-storey L-shaped warehouse fronting the road to the south-east, and a smaller two-storey L-shaped former stable block and coach house to the south-west. The complex is of considerable industrial archaeological interest as a relatively rare example of a yarn and linen warehouse surviving virtually intact alongside the original owner's house (a separate listed building immediately adjoining to the right of the main frontage).

THREE-STOREY WAREHOUSE

The warehouse is built of quarried random rubble blackstone, with an advanced brick eaves course. The east elevation has v-jointed, stepped dressed granite quoins at both ends. All window and door openings are square-headed, with brick heads and jambs. Unless otherwise noted, windows throughout are six-over-six timber sliding sashes with granite sills. The roof is hipped, reslated in natural slate, with steel half-round gutters and downpipes.

The street frontage (east elevation) is nine bays wide across its upper floors and symmetrically designed. At the centre of the ground floor is a three-centred coach arch with a dressed granite surround featuring accentuated foot, spring and keystones. To the left of this arch is a window and half-glazed timber door giving access to an electrical goods shop. To the right, the original window and door openings have been replaced by a modern shop front for a fast-food outlet. The first and second floors each carry nine windows aligned with one another, and two shop signs project at first floor level.

The south elevation of the warehouse return faces the garden of a neighbouring listed property. It is fifteen bays wide across its upper floors. The ground floor stonework is of noticeably poorer quality than the rest of the wall and may originally have been rendered. Six windows serve the ground floor and fifteen each serve the first and second floors, all aligned vertically. One ground floor window sill is of sandstone and two are of concrete.

The yard (west) elevation of the front section is abutted at its right-hand end by a three-storey external stairwell. It is five bays wide across its upper floors. The yard side of the coach arch has a brick architrave with granite spring and keystones, and a modern steel gate is hung from one side. To the left of the arch is a sheeted timber door with overlight and a window belonging to the fast-food outlet. First and second floor openings are aligned; all are windows except for a sheeted loading door at first floor right. The stairwell occupying the corner has a shallow sloping felted timber roof, steel half-round gutter, and is of brick construction throughout, with a rounded north-west corner. Its north elevation has a six-over-six window at each landing, and there is a smaller six-over-six window between each landing on its west elevation. A short flight of timber stairs leads up to a sheeted timber door at the base of the stairwell, with an under-stair opening at the bottom of the west elevation.

The yard (north) elevation of the return is nine bays wide and is abutted on the left by the stairwell. The ground floor has three three-centred arches, all with brick surrounds and raised granite spring and keystones. Two of these arches have been infilled with rubble blackstone: one now contains an inserted sheeted door with overlight and the other an inserted six-over-six window, both trimmed with brick and the window fitted with a granite sill. The unaltered arch at the right retains its original pair of sheeted timber doors. Each of the upper floors carries nine windows, all aligned with one another. The yard to the north is bounded by a modern building belonging to an adjoining premises.

Internally, the spaces are largely intact and the king-post and queen-post roof trusses are of structural interest.

TWO-STOREY STABLE BLOCK

The former stable block has a pitched natural slate roof, metal half-round gutters and downpipes, and cement-rendered walls, painted on the yard elevations. Unless otherwise noted, windows are six-over-six timber sliding sashes with granite sills.

The west elevation is two storeys high over a basement, fronting a former headrace to another mill to the south. Its left half is slightly advanced and contains four windows at first floor level; windows to the ground and basement levels have been infilled and rendered over. The right-hand half contains two three-over-three timber sash windows set into larger brick-trimmed openings.

The south elevation has two windows to the ground floor (one six-over-six, the other three-over-three) and three three-over-three windows to the first floor, along with two infilled openings at upper floor level whose sills survive. A brick chimney of square cross-section projects from the south pitch of the roof; it stands to its full height and is finished with an out-curving mounded granite crown.

The yard (east) elevation of the north-south section of the stable block has a raised eaves gable containing a working clock set in a circular moulded surround. Both floors have three windows and a sheeted timber door each.

The yard (north) elevation of the east-west section has two segmental-arched doorways at ground floor level. One contains a two-leaf sheeted timber door; the other has a modern semi-glazed timber door with glazed sidelights and a spoked overlight, the windows of which are double-glazed. Affixed to the north end of the east gable of the east-west section is a hand-operated water pump. Both its intake and outlet pipes have been removed. The pump itself comprises an up-down plunger that discharged sideways into a small vertical cylinder with a tap at the bottom and an outlet pipe at the top. The pump has been painted and is no longer workable.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The complex first appears on the 1860 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, where it stands at the north-east end of a bleach green associated with a bleach mill further along Castlewellan Road. It is absent from the 1833 map and is not mentioned in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 or 1837, placing its construction between 1837 and 1860. The 1861 large-scale town map captions it as a linen manufactory. A deed of co-partnership dated 30 August 1854 describes William Waugh as a linen manufacturer of Banbridge who had already erected a manufactory, warehouses, offices, boiling houses and drying lofts in and adjoining the town, with warping and other machinery fixtures in place and in use. This narrows the probable date of construction to between 1837 and 1854.

The 1863 Griffith Valuation records the site as belonging to William Waugh and comprising a house, linen and yarn stores, offices, yard and garden, rated at £128 — indicating a sizeable enterprise. The valuation gives the following dimensions for the individual structures:

The house (the adjoining owner's property) measured approximately 23 yards by 10½ yards by 30 feet, of two storeys. The office fronting the street measured approximately 26 yards by 11 yards by 30 feet, of three storeys. The warehouse forming the side return measured 24½ yards by 7½ yards by 30 feet, of three storeys. A small office at the gate measured 2 yards by 2 yards by 30 feet, of three storeys (this is the external stairwell). The street-fronting office and warehouse are described as stone-built with cut granite quoins. A two-storey office of approximately 12 yards by 10 yards by 18 feet stood at the south-west corner of the site, and another of approximately 11 yards by 7 yards by 18 feet stood at the north-west; these are described as stables, a coach house and a boiling house, with a 60-foot chimney. A further single-storey office of 21 yards by 5 yards projected into the mill race at the west end of the site. With the exception of this last structure on the mill race, all of the buildings described in the valuation survive today.

The premises appear to have been built primarily for the storage of yarn and linen and for the warping of yarn — a preparatory stage in the weaving process. Since the site is nowhere described as a weaving factory, the warped beams were presumably dispatched elsewhere for weaving into linen, whether by hand-loom weavers or power-loom factories. The presence of a chimney and boiling house suggests that yarn may also have been processed — perhaps bleached — before warping.

The 1864 Valuation Revision Book records William Walker as occupant of the linen and yarn stores. Waugh had entered into a seven-year partnership with Walker in 1854, though whether they were still partners by this date is uncertain. By 1870 the premises had reverted to Waugh. The 1874 valuation entry names James C. Stuart as occupant and describes the site as used for reeling, winding, warping and yarn storage, consistent with its role in yarn preparation rather than manufacture. By 1881 Joseph Morton had taken over. Although the site continued to be described in the same terms, Morton was a seed merchant rather than a linen manufacturer, having been established elsewhere in the town since 1856. The 1889 town map captions the premises as seed stores, and the 1899 valuation book describes them as grass seed stores.

A firm recorded as Cross and Sons took over from Morton in 1899 and appears in valuation entries until 1922, when Joseph Morton reappears. The 1901 census records Joseph Morton living in the adjoining house and describes him as a 58-year-old seed merchant; in the 1911 census he gives his age as 70 and describes himself simply as a merchant. He would have been approximately 80 in 1922 and was probably no longer actively running the business at that point.

According to the present owner, the premises were acquired by the Northern Ireland Electricity Board in the early 1950s. They were subsequently sold to Mr Win Milligan, a furniture retailer trading as the Classic Furniture Company Ltd. The present owner acquired the site in the 1980s.