Store in The McCreedy Mill Centre, Caledon Road, Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone, BT69 6AL

Store at the McCreedy Mill Centre, Caledon Road, Aughnacloy, County Tyrone

This small single-storey building forms part of the McCreedy Mill Complex at the south-eastern end of Aughnacloy and probably dates from the earlier 19th century, most likely between 1820 and 1839. It sits at the north-eastern end of one of what was formerly a four-block complex. The building is aligned north-west to south-east, is one bay wide, and was latterly used as a store. It is currently vacant and in disrepair.

The walls are of quarried random rubble sandstone. The roof is now curved corrugated metal, but was almost certainly originally pitched and covered with slates or thatch. The south-east gable was formerly abutted by a stable block, now demolished; the ragged stonework at each corner of this gable indicates that both structures were built at the same time. A small entrance door at the left end of this south-east elevation is a modern insertion, as evidenced by the use of modern brick, cement, and concrete around the opening.

The south-west elevation is cut into a revetted bank and is largely blank, apart from an infilled window opening on the left, which retains stone jambs and a hand-made brick head. The north-west gable is also cut into the bank and is not visible from the outside. The north-east elevation has three original openings, all with dressed stone jambs, internal brick reveals, and timber heads. The leftmost opening is a door, now with an external replacement concrete head and its door missing; the other two are frameless window openings, one with a concrete head and one with a dressed stone head, both with concrete cills. A low rubble stone platform runs at right angles from the right-hand end of this elevation.

The building's principal interior feature of interest is three arched recesses on the north-west internal gable. The middle recess may have been a fireplace, though of somewhat unusual design. There is no internal structural evidence to suggest the building was ever used as a kiln or for any other industrial purpose, and its original function remains unknown. It may originally have been a dwelling before becoming a store.

The complex appears on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, with all four blocks shown. The 1836 first Valuation records the complex as belonging to John Falls and describes it as a "mill, stores, malt house, etc." — the malt house probably doubling as a grain-drying kiln. By the time of the 1859 Griffith Valuation, the occupier was John Fiddes; the mill, kiln, and office were rated at £32, and the wider complex — which included stables, a miller's house, a kilnman's house, a corn store, and a second kiln — carried a total rateable valuation of £51 5s 0d, a substantial property for its day. The land was part of the Acheson Moore Estate and the lessor was Robert M. Moore.

Valuation revision books record William J. Fiddes and Matthew J. Fiddes taking over the complex in 1878, probably from their father, with Matthew becoming sole owner from 1892. By 1896, the second kiln to the north had been converted into a music hall, and by 1908 this appears to have been further converted into a sawmill — presumably driven by an internal combustion engine, as it was situated above the mill race and had no water power. Notably, the 1907 Ordnance Survey map shows the building under review as a roofless shell at this time.

Around 1921 the entire complex was acquired by Robert McCreedy, and it likely passed to his son William thereafter. A valuation survey of 1934 records a flax mill operating within the complex in addition to the corn and sawmills. By 1936 the building under review appears to have been re-roofed and was probably in use as a store again — its curved roof and inserted south-east door likely dating from somewhere between 1907 and 1936, possibly as part of works carried out by McCreedy in the 1920s. A 1937 valuation entry notes the ground floor of the corn mill in use as a fowl house and the upper floor as a flax store, with the flax trade having revived on the back of government subsidies. By 1938, however, the whole premises were recorded as in poor repair, with the corn mill idle and the flax and sawmills only partly in use. The corn mill disappears from the valuations entirely in 1938, and the sawmill appears to have gone out of use around 1948. The corn mill and its adjacent kiln were demolished in 1997, and the wider site was redeveloped the following year under a CRISP scheme; the original rubble stonework was recycled and an attempt made to reflect the form and style of the earlier buildings. The stream that drove the mill still runs alongside the south-east gable, but the large pond directly behind the mill has been infilled. The block to the north of the complex has been truncated to one storey for safety reasons, and only its south-east facade now remains visible.

The building is recorded as derelict. It is considered of some industrial archaeological interest, but is not listed. The principal reason it falls short of listing criteria is that its single noteworthy interior feature — the arched recesses on the internal gable — is insufficient on its own to justify listing, particularly given the significant alterations to the roof, the absence of other significant features, and the largely lost original context of the wider mill complex. The Environment and Heritage Service holds twelve exterior photographs, eight interior photographs, and a number of sketches of the building.