Former Wash Mill, Adjacent Roe Valley County Park, Largy, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49

Former Wash Mill

Two stone buildings of modest architectural value situated on the edge of an old bleach green (Roe Green) and immediately adjacent the riverside walk of Roe Valley County Park near Largy, Limavady. They are of significance because of their connection to the wider history of mills in the Roe Valley.

The main building is a large single-storey stone structure aligned north-west to south-east, with a steep pitched corrugated metal roof. A much smaller derelict roofless building extends from its northern corner. The south-east gable of the main building features a single door opening in the centre of the facade, positioned within a bricked-up horseshoe arch. The south-west side has one opening, with evidence of several others now bricked up. The north-west gable contains a large rectangular opening trimmed in brick with modern corrugated iron doors. The north-east gable shows several bricked-up sections. Much of the stonework has been rebuilt in brick over the years.

The smaller derelict building originally had a mono-pitch roof. Its north-west and south-east gables each have a semi-circular arch bricked up at ground level, with a door opening in the centre of the south-west wall.

The workers cottage stands parallel and ten metres to the south-west, aligned toward another group of mill buildings. It is a two-room direct entry vernacular stone cottage with a third room added in brick on the north-west gable. The building is whitewashed with a natural slate roof and is in a state of dereliction. Two brick chimneys sit on the ridge, one at each end of the stone section. The entrance facade faces south-west. No window frames remain. A lean-to porch projects from the entrance.

Both buildings appear on the 1831 map, though unlabelled. A mill pond is marked to the south at the far end of the bleach green. The 1848 map labels the main building as 'Old Wash Mill'. The smaller mono-pitched building does not appear until the 1907 map and carries no label.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834–35 record that 'A bleach green in the townland of Largy ceased to work in 1831'. The memoirs note: 'The machinery of the old wash mill is completely out of repair; the other parts of the building are occupied for a linen manufactory…established 19th December 1833…The water wheel is a breast 16 feet in diameter and 6 feet across the rim and placed in the house of the old wash mill, it works a crane with wheel and pinions of metal.'

The bleach green had been established in 1766 by Lesley Alexander of Newtown Limavady. Following its closure in 1831, Richardson and Smith of Lisburn began operating a linen factory here in 1833, producing linen yarn for cottage weavers. Evidence suggests the site remained operational in 1840. By 1857 the valuation recorded 'no works of any kind doing business in these premises for some time past'.

A wash mill performed repeated washing, bucking (soaking), boiling and bleaching of woven cloth—processes that could not be satisfactorily carried out by home labourers and thus represented the first textile operations to apply mechanical power.