Christie's Mill, Beside 8 Crockan Road, Artigarvan, Strabane, Co Tyrone, BT82 0HZ

Christie's Mill

A three-storey, single-bay water-powered corn mill of late 1850s date, standing beside Crockan Road at Artigarvan near Strabane. The complex comprises the mill itself, an abutting two-storey store, and a roofless grain-drying kiln, all of random rubble construction.

The corn mill is aligned north to south along the east side of the public road. It has a pitched natural slate roof with remnants of half-round metal gutters. The walls are of random rubble with traces of render, heavily overgrown with ivy on the south and west elevations. All window openings have hand-made brick jambs and heads. Most windows are 3x3-paned timber frames with shallow segmental heads and no cills.

The west elevation is largely obscured by ivy, but two window openings are visible at ground floor and second floor levels, with a loading door and window at first floor. The north gable contains the waterwheel (described below), whose axle passes into the mill's ground floor. A window and doorway at first floor right provide access to the top of the wheel. The second floor is lit by a single central window, with two small openings of unknown function in the gable apex. The east elevation is partially obscured by the abutting store. The main entrance to the mill is on the exposed section at ground floor left, with windows at first floor (2x3) and second floor (2x2). The second-floor window is partly blocked by the store's roofline, indicating the store is a later addition, though likely built very soon after the mill. The south gable is abutted by the kiln at ground and first floor levels, with a doorway through the party wall at ground floor and an infilled opening at first floor right. The second floor and apex have been rebuilt in alternating courses of concrete blocks and bricks, rendered with cement, and this rebuilt section is approximately 12 inches thinner than the masonry below.

The waterwheel is of high breast-shot type, measuring 16 feet in diameter by 5 feet wide. Its axle, hubs and rims are of cast iron. Each rim comprises eight segments bolted together, each bearing the maker's name "James Stevenson / Strabane Foundry / Strabane". The arms (two sets of eight), angled buckets (48 in total) and soleplate are of timber, now deteriorated. Iron mechanism for raising and lowering the sluice gate survives in fragmentary form, controlled from inside the mill at first floor level. The wheel sits in a stone-lined pit and was supplied from the west by a timber launder, now gone, atop a rubble stone bank. The mill pond survives to the west, overgrown, along with the open channel that brought water to the launder. Water returned to the Glenmornan River via an open tailrace, now largely infilled.

The two-storey store abuts the mill's east elevation and is aligned east to west. It is similarly constructed of random rubble with natural slate roof and half-round metal gutters. The north elevation has a ground-floor doorway at right, with windows to middle and left (the latter infilled with brick), and a first-floor loading door at middle with window at right. The east gable is blank except for a first-floor window. The south elevation has doors at each end of the ground floor with a window between, and two windows at first floor.

The kiln is now a roofless ruin of random rubble construction and was essential to the mill's operation, drying oats thoroughly before milling. Its east elevation has partly collapsed, but door and window openings remain apparent, mostly infilled, including the stoking end of the kiln's firehole. This was likely protected by a small abutting building shown on Ordnance Survey maps from 1905 onwards. The south gable is blank except for an infilled ground-floor opening, and much of the west elevation has collapsed.

The mill complex is located at a sharp bend in Crockan Road, which runs along its west side. It was formerly supplied from the Glenmornan River. A refurbished two-storey mill house stands to the northwest, and a 1950s farm outbuilding lies to the north.