Mill site, Erganagh Road, Castlederg BT81 7JS

Mill site, Erganagh Road, Castlederg

A detached two-storey rubble stone former flax mill built around 1840, located on the west side of Erganagh Road. The rectangular building faces south with a pitched corrugated iron roof, iron ridge, concrete skews and metal rainwater goods. The walls are constructed from uncoursed rubble stone with redbrick quoins, all laid in lime mortar. Square-headed door and window openings are fitted with stone and timber lintels, some containing metal casement windows. The multi-bay south elevation shows squared stone quoins to the centre, indicating an eastward extension. The east section has largely collapsed. The west gable is blank but features an attached iron vertical breastshot waterwheel with timber floatboards, formerly fed by a rubblestone sluice channelled from the nearby river. The waterwheel remains largely intact. The rear north elevation is partially built into the sloping site with two openings. The east gable is blank. A chimneystack built in rubble stone to the base with squared stone quoins survives to the north, its upper section constructed in redbrick laid in stretcher bond with a brick string course. On the summit of the hill stands a range of early twentieth-century cement rendered buildings with asbestos pitched roofs. The original mill building is in poor condition and much altered.

The mill first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1855 captioned "Flax Mill". The third edition of 1905 shows a weir, sluice and pond. The fourth edition records a chimney on the complex. Griffith's Valuation records a flax mill occupied by Joseph Stuart and leased from the Marquis of Abercorn, valued at £6 10 shillings. In 1871 the valuation increased to £11 10 shillings following the addition of steam power of 10 horsepower with 10 stocks. Joseph Stewart became the owner in fee in 1889 and Charles Stewart in 1907. A revaluation around 1915 noted the mill comprised a scutching room on the ground floor and a bruising room on the first floor.

By 1934 the flax mill was described as "at rest". A valuer's note recorded only three stocks in working order (down from eight), five pairs of roller bruising machines, and a waterwheel measuring 16 feet by 5 feet, with the mill having not worked for the previous four years. The valuation was consequently reduced from £15 to £1. The mill building was of rubble masonry and slate; a store was of rubble masonry and corrugated iron.

The mill reopened in 1942 with eight stocks, four in use, powered by an electric motor of 20 horsepower driving approximately 12 horsepower into the mill, working five months per annum. The valuation rose from £1 to £7 10 shillings. A new corrugated iron shed store was built. During the Second World War, despite the Ulster linen industry's post-First World War contraction, the mill again became productive, contributing to wartime supplies including flax hosepipe, parachute webbing, aeroplane fabric, heavy canvas, tarpaulins and hatch covers for the Mercantile Marine, general purpose linen dowlas and blitz covers, canvas and duck for the Admiralty, linen scrim for packing, linen thread and seaming twine, fresh nets, twines, water-bag canvas, flax tentage, hammock canvas, braided cordage for aircraft production, linen for flying suits, mechanical cloths, special tank canvas for amphibious tanks and linen cambric for ammunition filling.

The mill building and sluice constitute the remains of an increasingly rare example of nineteenth-century industrial archaeology. The original mill has been out of use for over half a century.