Disused corn mill at Kinghill, 6 Kinghill Rd, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5RB

Disused corn mill at Kinghill

This mill is primarily of historical interest due to its early 18th-century date, reconfiguration in the mid-19th century, and association with Kinghill. It stands in relation to a kilnman's house and corn drying kiln (HB16/07/064B) and related sites HB16/07/032, /039 and /065.

The mill is a two-storey structure of a single bay with a similar return, approached by a single-arch random rubble bridge spanning a deeply incised stream bed. Built into a west-facing slope and aligned north-south, it has an external waterwheel on the north gable. The pitched natural slate roof carries projecting scalloped bargeboards to the south gable. The walls are of random schist and granite rubble brought to courses with projecting brick eaves.

The principal facade faces west. At ground floor centre is an infilled brick-arched entrance, with a second entrance having a granite head at right. The first floor is blank. At left are the remains of an external engine drive to the mill machinery, comprising a pulley linked to a small pinion driving a larger spur gear from which a shaft runs inside. All is cast-iron except the wooden cogs of the spur gear.

The north gable has a window to the first floor with an opening entirely in granite. The external waterwheel survives in ruinous condition. It comprises a timber axle, two cast-iron hubs for eight arms, and cast-iron rims with housings for 48 angled wooden buckets. The wheel measures approximately 4.88 metres diameter by 1.19 metres wide (circa 16 feet 0 inches by 3 feet 11 inches). It is high breast shot, with ashlar granite lining to the lower section of the curved apron. Water is carried on a concrete-shuttered launder from the headrace to the east of the mill. A short tailrace, now infilled, runs to the stream.

The east facade is abutted to the middle by a two-storey return. Immediately left of this return is an entrance door to the first floor of the mill, accessed by a walkway carried on granite lintels from sloping ground behind. To the right of the return, also at first floor, is a window opening with a granite surround. The ground floor is blank. The south gable has a window to each floor, both with brick heads and stepped brick jambs.

The abutting return is two storeys high with a half-hipped natural slate roof and a skylight to the south pitch. It has random rubble walls brought to courses with projecting brick eaves and traces of lime render. The south facade has a window similar to those on the south gable of the mill. The east gable has a tongued-and-grooved beaded door to the first floor, accessed at the level of the external ground. The north facade has a semicircular brick arch rising to just above the ground floor ceiling, with the wall below having collapsed. There is a smaller brick arch to the ground floor at right.

Low ruins to the north of the north gable of the mill may be all that remains of the former flax mill.

According to the 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoir, the mill was erected about 1730 and belonged to William N Barron but was rented by Samuel Fitzsimmons. The waterwheel was described as breast shot, measuring 15 feet 9 inches in diameter by 2 feet 10 inches wide. It drove a single set of stones through a 9-foot 3-inch diameter pit wheel, with the entire gearing and associated machinery being of wood. The mill worked on average for nine months per year but suffered from insufficient water in summer and was undergoing repairs at the time of the 1836 survey. The 1838 Valuation Book notes Barron as owner, with the corn mill measuring 27 feet by 18 feet 6 inches by 10 feet 6 inches, and records that in summer water collected in the pond over a two-day period was sufficient to drive the mill for one day.

The 1859 Ordnance Survey map shows the mill building as enlarged to the north and captioned as corn and flax mills, suggesting the addition was a flax mill. A note in the first Valuation indicates this was added in 1861. The second Valuation of circa 1861 describes the waterwheel as measuring 16 feet diameter by 3 feet 6 inches wide and notes the presence of a 10-horsepower steam engine. The corn mill contained three pairs of stones, only two of which worked at any one time. The flax mill contained 12 stocks and a set of rollers. Both mills worked for six months of the year.

Between 1838 and 1859, the complex was equipped with a new wheel and machinery in great spur wheel configuration, and a flax mill was added. The field evidence suggests that the steam engine boiler was housed in the ground floor of the corn mill return, and the existing wheel is probably that installed at this time. The flax mill would have been driven by both the waterwheel and the steam engine. James Wamsley took over the lease of the mills in 1868 according to Valuation revision books, though the mills had reverted to Barron by 1874. Both mills were noted as vacant in 1888, and the flax mill was recorded as demolished in 1893. The corn mill was presumably in a derelict state by 1913 when it was revalued at zero.