Old Mill, William Clark and Sons Ltd, Upperlands, Co Londonderry, BT46 5UP

Old Mill, William Clark and Sons Ltd, Upperlands

A two-storey building of whitened stone construction with a thatched roof held between raised parapets and finished with plaster on top of concrete. Built into a hillside and fully exposed only on the north-west and south-west elevations, it occupies the original site from 1740 and represents a unique example of a thatched mill.

The building housed a beetling engine on the lower floor, driven by a fourteen-foot breast wheel powered by water from a lade and mill race. The iron-framed timber wheel (obtained from a mill at Swatragh) is contained within a stone-built wheel pit on the south-west side, with a timber channel above it.

The thatched roof is reed with square-cut eaves and three rows of scallops on either side of the ridge. The south-east entrance elevation, which faces the main driveway, is largely blank except for a timber-sheeted door under a voussoired stone lintel. The north-east side has two openings filled with timber louvre boards (seven boards each), with timber lintels and no sills. Above these is a board inscribed "ORIGINAL BEETLING HOUSE 1740". The north-west elevation contains two blocked openings at upper level with brick dressings and rough concrete lintels, a pair of timber-sheeted doors at lower level with brick dressings and concrete lintel, and a blocked window opening with brick dressings and concrete lintel. The south-west side has two openings at upper level filled with timber louvres (eight boards each) with timber lintels and no sills. Access to the upper entrance level is by a flight of rough stone steps that curve around the south-east corner.

The building was constructed in 1740 by Jackson Clark, son of John Clark, who had founded a linen business around Upperlands after 1700. John Clark, originally from Abbots Salford in Warwickshire, had acquired farmland near Maghera in 1680 and began bleaching cloth produced by local weavers after Irish linen was admitted free of duty in 1698. Jackson Clark mechanised the business and built this mill. Until about 1960, damp linen was beetled and given an even shine on the ground floor, then carried up the steps to dry in the upper loft. The firm he founded survives as the oldest family linen business in the world, spanning nine generations.

The extent of listing includes the mill building, steps, race and sluice gate.