Engine house and steam engine, Mill Street, Caledon, Co Tyrone, BT68 4TT

Derelict Engine House and Steam Engine, Caledon Flour Mill Mill Street, Caledon, Co Tyrone Built c.1830–1834

Overview and Significance

These are the roofless, derelict remains of a three-storey engine house, built between 1830 and 1834 as part of a flour mill complex that has since been demolished. The engine house retains its original steam engine in situ. As industrial archaeologist Dr Fred Hamond wrote in 1997, "The Caledon engine is one of only eight beam engines to survive in Ireland, and the only one still in its original position in Northern Ireland. It also appears to be the oldest surviving in the entire country and is unique in being the only in situ example of the 'house-built' variety." The building sits within a conservation area and is recorded as derelict. It is of industrial archaeological interest at both Northern Ireland and international level.

Location and Setting

The building stands on the south side of Mill Street, Caledon, isolated on a grass expanse and surrounded by metal fencing. It is the last surviving section of what was a predominantly six-storey mill complex. The former mill race remains discernible to the south side.

Exterior Description

The building is rectangular in plan, set roughly on a north–south axis, and measures approximately 9.7 by 5.1 metres externally, rising to 7.65 metres at the verge. The walls are built in random rubble with flush, in-and-out dressed sandstone quoins.

Of the four walls, the north, south and east were originally largely exposed, while the west wall was in fact the east gable of the six-storey mill itself, to which the engine house was added a few years after the mill was first built.

The east wall contains the main entrance: a pedestrian doorway at ground level to the right-hand side, fitted with a metal door. Much of the rest of the east wall is covered in thick ivy, but to the left at first-floor level there is a small square opening with sandstone dressings. The outline of the gable of a former single-storey structure — apparently originally the boiler house — can still be discerned abutting this wall.

The narrower south wall incorporates a basement level that sits within the former mill race, and has three large openings stacked one above the other. The two upper openings were windows. The lower of these survives largely intact but without its frame, and has a sandstone cill, sandstone lintel and brick dressings. The upper window has lost its lintel and is completely open above. The ground-level opening may have been a doorway; photographic evidence from the 1960s suggests it was once accessed via an external balcony. It is finished in similar fashion to the window above it, but no door survives.

The north wall is featureless, with a large section covered in thick ivy. Remains of render at ground-floor level suggest that a small lean-to structure may once have abutted this side.

The west wall — originally the mill's east gable — shows clear evidence of significant alteration when the engine house was added. Former window openings belonging to the mill have been blocked up in brick, and other openings were inserted to accommodate the shafts of the engine.

Interior

The large cast-iron flywheel remains in place at ground-floor level. The building originally had a gabled roof, but almost all of this has fallen away, along with much of the apex of the east gable. The twisted remains of iron trusses and lathes are still in situ.

Historical Background

Early Development of the Mill

Although the complex came to be known as Caledon Woollen Mills, it was originally built by the Earl of Caledon in the 1820s as a flour mill for grinding cereals — in its day probably one of the largest such enterprises in the province.

The earliest documented reference appears in an estate account book entry dated February 1824, recording an expenditure of £441 on the "new mills." The mill appears to have been set to work by late 1826, when 12 employees are recorded, including George Palmer (miller), Henry Mathers (flour dresser) and James Griffin (kiln man). By the end of 1826, almost £12,000 had been spent on construction. Building work continued thereafter: a further £3,300 was expended in 1827 and £1,350 in 1828.

The mill was initially powered by a single waterwheel 18 feet in diameter and 18 feet wide, with water drawn from the River Blackwater at a weir near the road bridge. By April 1830 a second wheel of identical dimensions had been installed. Their size suggests a design pioneered by the eminent English millwright William Fairbairn, though whether the wheels were actually manufactured and installed by him has not been confirmed.

The 1834 Ordnance Survey map at 1:10,560 scale shows the ground plan of the complex having reached the form later illustrated by George Bassett in 1888. Its scale is noted in the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoir: "The flour mills at Caledon rank among the most extensive of the class in the kingdom. ...Lord Caledon is sparing no expense in improvements here, and the four mills which he has erected supply the country from Belfast to Lough Erne and nearly equal distances north and south. They sell about £250 worth of flour per diem." The 1844 Parliamentary Gazetteer described it as "one of the largest and best contrived corn mills in Ireland," at a time when over 9,000 tons of wheat were being grown locally and ground at the mill each year.

By 1858, Lord Caledon had leased the site to William Browne and James Clow, with provender (animal-feed) milling likely the main activity at that time. The mill had ceased production by 1864, restarted around 1877, but had halted again by 1880.

The Steam Engine

The first definite reference to a steam engine at Caledon Mill appears in the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoir: "There is also a subsidiary lower pressure steam engine of 25 horsepower. The average consumption of coal is four hundredweight per hour. ...The seeds or refuse of the grain is also used as fuel and it is found that one ton of seeds is equal to four hundredweight of coal." The 1834 map suggests the engine house and boiler room were probably complete by that date, but the engine is unlikely to have been installed before 1830.

Writing to Lord Caledon on 2 April 1830 about the new waterwheel, his agent William Knox noted: "I am fully convinced from the experience I have had that the effective power of the mill for the year round is doubled: and considerably more than doubled in light water. In fact, the rate of advantage on the new wheel increases as the water gets lighter and I am persuaded that it is the best laid out money that your lordship has expended on the Caledon Mills." These remarks indicate that the mill relied solely on water power at that point, confirming that the steam engine was installed sometime during the period 1830 to 1834.

Conversion to a Woollen Mill

In 1882, the defunct complex was leased to John Charles Sherrard and Oliver Smith, who reconfigured it for the manufacture of woollen cloth — a process involving spinning, weaving and finishing. Bassett describes the operation in 1888: "Forty looms of the best description sets of carding machines, with self-acting mules to match, and all the requisite machinery for preparing, dyeing and finishing were put into position, and the work begun under the most encouraging auspices. ...The water supply continues fair all year round. Steam is used as an auxiliary. The manufactures consist of tweeds, friezes, serges, blankets, flannels, coatings, costume cloth and knitting yarns. Messrs. Sherrard, Smith & Co do business only with the wholesale trade of the United Kingdom, the European Continent, the United States and the Colonies."

The two waterwheels were replaced by turbines in 1892 and 1897 respectively. Around 1900 the mill was purchased by Messrs John Fulton & Co of Belfast, thereafter trading as the Caledon Woollen Mills Co Ltd. Sometime before 1914 the steam engine was superseded by a gas engine. During the First World War the mill employed over 700 people, mainly in the production of khaki cloth for the armed forces. The mill finally ceased working in 1931 and gradually fell into disrepair over the following decades. Photographs taken by industrial archaeologist W.A. McCutcheon in the mid 1960s show that many of the smaller items of machinery had already been removed by that date. All the buildings were eventually demolished in the mid 1980s, with the exception of the engine house, the base of the chimney, and some 20th-century dyehouse-related concrete buildings at the north end of the complex.

Sources

Primary sources consulted include: Caledon estate account books 1824–26 (PRONI D 2433/A/IO/17–19); Ordnance Survey map, Co Tyrone, sheet 67, 1834 (PRONI OS 6/6/67/1); Ordnance Survey Memoir, Aghaloo Parish, Co Tyrone, 1835 (PRONI); S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, vol. 1, p.243 (1837) — Lewis states the mills were erected in 1823; Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, vol. 1, p.297 (1844); Griffith Valuation published 1860 (note: the 1858 manuscript version, PRONI VAL 2B/6/6C, contains no mention of the mill); PRONI VAL 12B/38/8B, p.28 and /8C, p.33 (1880); George Bassett, The Book of Armagh (Dublin, 1888), p.153 — note that Bassett erroneously dates the mills to 1852; a company brochure entitled A Successful Irish Industry issued by the Caledon Woollen Mills Co Ltd in 1919; Belfast News-Letter, 27 April 1962, p.4 (Linen Hall Library); and the EHS photographic survey of Caledon Mills by W.A. McCutcheon (c.1965). Secondary sources include H.D. Gribbon, A History of Water Power in Ulster (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1969), p.64.