Dromore Mills, 64 Baranailt Road, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 9HN

Dromore Mills Upper Complex — Corn Mill, Flax Scutching Mill and Headrace Launder

Dromore Mills is a water-powered industrial complex located approximately 5 kilometres west of Limavady town centre, set back from the south-east side of Baranailt Road on the northern bank of the Bessbrook River. The upper portion of the complex described here consists of a three-storey corn mill and attached two-storey flax scutching mill, together with a headrace launder. The buildings are of group value with the Lower Mill Complex and the Mill House, both situated immediately to the north-east adjacent to the Mill Pond. The complex as it stands dates principally from around 1900, though vestiges of an earlier mill survive within the fabric.

The block is aligned north to south, with the corn mill occupying the northern portion and the flax scutching mill the southern. Both mills share a single turbine via an interchangeable gear fitted to the top of the turbine shaft, allowing either the scutching equipment or the millstones to be operated, but not both simultaneously. This arrangement is a particularly rare and intact survival: flax mills were once ubiquitous across mid-19th century Ulster but are now exceptionally scarce, and a completely intact example of this kind is almost without parallel. The complex also illustrates the adaptability of redundant mill buildings, having been converted after the Second World War to electricity generation. The mills carry additional social significance as the property of the same family — the Gilfillan family — for five generations since the 1840s. When operational, the flax mill was of direct economic importance to the local agricultural community, offering flax growers a facility to have their crop scutched before selling it at the local flax market.

Corn Mill

The corn mill occupies the northern, three-storey, single-bay portion of the block. Its roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with concrete verges; there are no rainwater goods. Walls are of random rubble with advanced brick eaves and vestiges of whitewash. Handmade brick quoins appear at first-floor and second-floor levels at the north-east and north-west corners, and at second-floor level only at the south-east and south-west corners; the ground-floor corners throughout are of stone. Unless noted otherwise, all window and door openings have brick heads and jambs, with timber heads to the first-floor openings.

The principal elevation faces east and is largely blank, containing only a ground-floor door and a replacement 2-over-1 window, a shuttered opening above the door at first-floor level, and a small louvred opening inserted to the right of the ground-floor window in the 1960s to ventilate the Lister electricity unit housed inside.

The north gable is cut into the slope so that only the first and second floors are exposed above ground. A narrow gap at ground-floor level between the gable and the bank retaining wall was left to minimise water seepage. At first-floor level there is a folding two-leaf timber door. A metal strap secures the bottom of its right-hand frame and bears the inscription "Jack & Sons Maybole" — a reference to one of Scotland's leading manufacturers of agricultural implements including reapers, potato diggers and ploughs. The strap is likely to have come from one such piece of machinery rather than being purpose-made as a door fitting. At second-floor level on the same gable is a lattice-iron window, and just below it are insulated terminals for the overhead wires that once carried electricity from the generators in the corn mill to the mill owner's dwelling house nearby.

The west elevation is abutted at ground-floor and first-floor level on the right by a mass-concrete pier supporting the end of the headrace launder, a structure that probably dates from the 1940s. The section of wall behind this pier was probably originally open — as indicated by brick jambs running up the wall on either side — to allow access to the waterwheel that preceded the internal turbine. The base of the headrace slopes down to first-floor level, where water flowed through a metal trash rack into a diagonal pipe leading to the turbine. At second-floor level above the launder is an original window opening that was subsequently infilled with brick; a smaller 2-over-4-paned timber window has been inserted into this infill, and the original timber head replaced with concrete. At second-floor level to the left is a doorway reached via three concrete steps from outside ground level, accessed from the south by an earthen ramp. There are no other openings on this elevation. The south gable is abutted at ground and first-floor levels by the flax mill and has no openings in its exposed upper section.

Flax Scutching Mill

The flax mill occupies the southern, two-storey, single-bay portion of the block. Its roof is also pitched natural slate with no verges or rainwater goods. Walls, eaves detail and openings follow the same treatment as the corn mill. Brick quoins appear at first-floor level at the south-east and south-west corners, while the ground-floor corners are again of stone. Wall breaks on the south gable clearly show that the building was raised from one storey to two, with brick quoins used on the raised section; the north gable was probably raised in the same way.

The east elevation is four openings wide at ground-floor level, comprising alternating doorways and shuttered openings, all with brick heads and jambs. There are also two loading doors at first-floor level, positioned directly above those below. All these openings are trimmed with brick and fitted with replacement doors and shutters. The south gable has a 2-over-1-paned timber window with stone head and jambs at ground-floor level. The stone detailing of this opening contrasts markedly with the brick-trimmed openings elsewhere in the block and supports the view that the ground floor predates the first floor — consistent with the evidence that the building was originally single-storey and later raised. There is also a small 2-over-1-paned window in the apex of the south gable. The west elevation is blank except for a ground-floor doorway fitted with a relatively modern steel security door.

Although the present owner has rebuilt part of the east elevation to prevent collapse, there are no visible wall breaks between the flax mill and the corn mill at this point. Combined with the physical evidence of the raised gables and the map evidence showing the building's footprint to have been considerably larger on the 1905 Ordnance Survey map than on those of 1830 and 1852, this supports the conclusion that the block was originally a single-storey, two-bay structure, which was subsequently raised — around 1900 — to three storeys at the north (corn mill) and to two storeys at the south (flax mill).

Materials: Natural slate roof; no rainwater goods; random rubble walls; replacement timber doors and windows; no original rainwater goods survive.

Historical Development

The earliest documented reference to a flax mill in Dromore Townland dates to 1825, when David Forrest — possibly a land agent for Robert Ogilby, the townland's landlord — acquired 22 acres and a half share in a flax mill, almost certainly the building under review. A building and associated races appear on the 1830 Ordnance Survey six-inch map without caption, and the mill is not recorded in the 1831 Valuation. At that time the property belonged to a Mr Robinson, who operated a corn mill a short distance downstream (now the Lower Mill Complex). Robinson probably held the remaining half-share in the flax mill.

The 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoir provides the first detailed description of the machinery. A 14-foot head of water powered a 12-foot diameter by 1-foot-8-inch wide breast-shot waterwheel. A 7-foot cog wheel drove four scutching rings, each with six handles, capable of processing one and a half hundredweight of flax per day. All the machinery was of timber and described as in bad repair, and the mill was idle in summer owing to insufficient water — which may explain its absence from the 1830 map and 1831 Valuation.

In 1838, Mr Morrison advertised his half-share in the flax mill for sale along with the corn mill, kiln and dwelling house in the Lower Mill complex. The property was purchased by John Gilfillan, great-great-grandfather of the current owner — establishing the family connection that has continued for five generations. The mill is explicitly captioned on the 1848–52 Ordnance Survey map. The 1856 Second Valuation describes it as "a very small building" containing four scutching stocks, three of which worked for six months in the year at an average of six hours per day. The official Flax Mill Returns for 1855 record the same four stocks and 16 handles, working for 16 weeks in that year.

By the 1860 Valuation revision, the flax mill and its associated store were recorded in the joint ownership of John Gilfillan and David Forrest; within a few years James Forrest had acquired David Forrest's half-share. The mill worked for 32 weeks during the 12-month period ending May 1865. Records around 1870 are somewhat contradictory: the 1869 Valuation records the flax mill as vacant and the Returns for the year ending May 1869 record no weeks of operation, yet the mill appears to have been working according to the 1871–72 Returns. The Valuation records suggest it remained empty until 1878.

From the 1866–67 Flax Mill Returns, a second flax mill appears in the same townland containing six stocks, recorded until 1872. This second mill appears in the Valuation revisions from 1874, described as steam-powered and belonging to John Gilfillan, and located in the plot corresponding to the Lower Mill Complex. It disappears from the valuations after 1876, indicating it had ceased working.

In 1877 the flax mill in the Upper Mill complex was destroyed by fire. The County Londonderry Grand Jury initially ruled the fire to have been malicious — there had also been an attempt to damage the corn mill — and awarded £150 compensation to Messrs Gilfillan and Forrest, later reduced to £120 after the Grand Jury concluded the fire was not arson. The Valuation revision books record the mill as reoccupied in 1878 by James Forrest, indicating it had been repaired. In the same year, two young boys were fined one shilling plus costs for maliciously damaging the waterwheel.

Around 1888 Henry Tyler took over the mill from Forrest. Following Tyler's death in early 1897 it passed to John Gilfillan's son, John Moore Gilfillan. According to the historian H. D. Gribbon, it was at this point — around 1900 — that the Kennedy turbine was installed to replace the waterwheel. The 1905 Ordnance Survey map captions the building as a corn mill rather than a flax mill, and its footprint as shown is substantially larger than on the 1830 and 1852 maps, consistent with the physical evidence of heightening described above.

The balance of evidence suggests that around 1900 John Moore Gilfillan enlarged the original single-storey flax mill building to its present form — two storeys for the flax mill and three storeys for the newly added corn mill — replaced the waterwheel with a Kennedy turbine, upgraded the scutching equipment from four to five stocks, and installed corn milling machinery for animal feed, all driven from the same turbine via the interchangeable gear arrangement. The sixth scutching ring found loose on the ground floor raises the possibility that John Moore Gilfillan relocated the redundant six-stock scutching machinery from the Lower Mill to the Upper Mill, removing one ring to allow the shaft sufficient length to pass through the party wall and connect to the turbine drive.

By 1911 the mill had passed to John Moore Gilfillan's son, John Gilfillan (John 3, the present owner's grandfather), who continued to operate the flax mill through the First World War and into the 1920s; it is shown as a flax mill on the 1923–24 Ordnance Survey map. A 1934 Valuation notebook records that the flax mill stopped around 1928 and was considered "unlikely to work again". It noted the north portion of the block as measuring 23 feet by 22 feet by 25 feet (three storeys) and the south part as 36 feet by 22 feet by 18 feet (two storeys). The flax mill did, however, restart during the Second World War, with scutching ceasing again at the war's end.

In 1947, John Gilfillan (the present owner's father) connected the turbine to a DC dynamo to supply electric lighting to the nearby house. This system was superseded around 1963 by a diesel-powered Lister "Start-O-Matic" AC generator, which accounts for the small louvred ventilation opening inserted into the east elevation of the corn mill at that time. The complex is shown uncaptioned on the 1975 Ordnance Survey map.

Around 2005, the present owner undertook repairs including rebuilding part of the east wall of the flax mill (which was on the verge of collapse), re-slating the entire block using original slates wherever possible, fitting replica doors and shutters, and installing a metal security gate at the rear of the flax mill.

In summary, the development of the complex can be traced through the following sequence: an early-to-mid 19th century single-storey flax mill with four stocks driven by a waterwheel; fire damage in 1877 followed by repair; enlargement around 1900 to the present two-storey flax mill and three-storey corn mill with five scutching stocks, a Kennedy turbine, and the interchangeable gear arrangement; cessation of milling around 1928; temporary restarting of the flax mill during the Second World War; conversion to hydro-electric generation in 1947; replacement by diesel generation in 1963; and conservation repairs around 2005.