Wool Store Mill Street Caledon Co. Tyrone BT68 4TT

Former warehouse and possible dwelling house, Caledon, County Tyrone, probably built around 1825

This three-storey limestone building on the north side of Mill Street in the village of Caledon dates from around 1825 and has served a variety of purposes over its life — most likely as a store associated with the mill that once stood opposite, and at various periods as a dwelling house or houses. It is locally known as the Wool Store. The building is currently disused and was surveyed in December 2018, at which point it was recorded as derelict. It sits within the Caledon Conservation Area but does not meet the criteria for listed building status.

The building is gable-ended with a basically rectangular plan. Its front elevation faces south onto Mill Street, where it stands at the western end of a mixed terrace. The rear backs onto sloping ground to the north and is now almost entirely obscured by creeper growth. To the west end, where the ground also rises though less steeply, there is a small single-storey late 20th century lean-to. The eastern end merges into a lower two-storey house of similar character.

The walls are built in limestone — roughly squared at ground floor level on the front elevation but somewhat less regular above. The original openings are dressed in brick; later insertions and enlargements are finished in brick, concrete block and limestone. The roof is slated and has stone parapets. Rainwater goods are metal.

The original windows to the front are relatively small, regularly arranged and largely uniform, with minor variations in size — those to the first floor are slightly smaller than their counterparts on the other levels. Most of these windows are now blocked in concrete block but retain the dilapidated remains of sash frames; those at ground floor level are filled with concrete block flush with the façade. Two windows appear to have been enlarged at some point to form loft doorways, likely in the late 19th or early 20th century, suggesting that by this period the building was being used at least partly as a warehouse.

The front elevation is asymmetrical. To the left at ground level is a large doorway that appears to be a late 20th century insertion, fitted with a metal-sheeted double door. To the right of this is a blocked window, then a blocked doorway, and further right another window and doorway, also blocked. This last doorway is awkwardly positioned and is not in line with the openings above, which may indicate it is not original.

The west gable at ground level is concealed by the lean-to. From the north side, a first floor doorway — now blocked — is accessible. The east gable abuts the neighbouring house and only its uppermost storey is fully exposed; there are no openings on this side, and a large section is covered in creeper. The rear elevation is almost wholly obscured by the same growth and by the rising ground, though drawings from 2010 record an asymmetric arrangement with doorways to the far left and far right at ground floor level, three window openings between them, and three more in line with these at first floor level. At second floor level there are three further windows, arranged symmetrically but out of line with those below.

The interior has been radically altered, with the complete loss of the original layout and detailing. There are no chimneystacks, which is notable given that the building served as a dwelling for many decades according to historical records.

The coursing of the stonework on the front wall suggests that the present structure may have started out considerably lower than it stands today, or may incorporate fabric from an earlier building. On Robert Barns's 1813 map of Caledon, what is now Mill Street is shown as the 'Road down to the Bason', with the plots now occupied by the store and the terrace to its east already partly developed. However, the buildings shown at that date are depicted as largely single or one-and-a-half-storey freestanding dwellings and outbuildings, making it unlikely that any of them correspond directly to the present structure.

The wider context of the building's history is closely tied to the large mill that once stood on the opposite side of Mill Street. In the 1820s and 1830s, much of Caledon was redeveloped by James Du Pre Alexander, 2nd Earl of Caledon, and many of the limestone properties that give the village its character date from this period. The construction of a large six-storey corn and flour mill on the south side of Mill Street commenced in 1823 at a reputed cost of £47,000, and much of the subsequent development of the street was shaped by the presence of this complex. A terrace of mill workers' houses was added to the east of the mill before 1834, and the Ordnance Survey map of that year shows a long continuous row on the northern side of the street taking in the site of the store.

Tracing the building's precise history is made difficult by the loss of many 19th century valuation records for the Caledon area — records that would have revealed details such as dimensions, use and alterations. What is known is that from at least the late 1850s the building (or whatever stood on this site at the time) formed part of a larger single property that also took in the two two-storey dwelling houses immediately to the east. This larger property may have been the unoccupied 'house, office and yard' noted in the second valuation of around 1859 as held by William Browne and James Clow, who at that time also held the lease of the mill itself — though discrepancies between the valuation map reference numbers and the written record make this difficult to verify with certainty.

During the 1860s and 1870s the property does not appear in the valuations at all. It emerges again in 1882 as a 'house and yard' leased by Charles Farrell from what was by then Caledon Woollen Mills Ltd — the former corn and flax mill having been converted solely to textile production by Sherrard, Smith & Co. two years earlier. By 1890 the property is recorded as three separate dwellings, with the store portion (by then numbered 2 Mill Street) occupied by Thomas Farrell. John Graham is noted as leaseholder in 1901 and William Bryans from 1904, who held both number 2 and the neighbouring number 4 until 1928. In 1935, number 2 is listed in the valuation book for the first time specifically as a 'store', and is recorded as vacant, the lease having reverted to the Caledon Estate following the mill's final closure in 1930. The building remained out of use until at least 1957 according to subsequent valuations, though it clearly saw some use after this point — a local resident has recalled that in the 1960s or 1970s it was used for growing mushrooms.

The large mill on the opposite side of the street was largely demolished in the mid-1980s, with only part of the engine house left standing.