The Stable, Mary Brook, 11 Raleagh Road, Drummaconagher, Crossgar, Downpatrick, Co. Down, BT30 9JG

The Stable is a single-storey building forming part of the extensive and largely complete small-scale Georgian vernacular rural milling complex at Mary Brook, dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries. The complex as a whole includes water-powered two-storey corn and flax mills, all probably mid to late 18th century in origin, a two-storey miller's house of 1837, and subsidiary structures including a small cottage and storehouse of around the 1840s. The grouping was abandoned in the 1950s and lay largely derelict until the early 1970s, when it was acquired by Mr Lewis-Crosby, a senior figure within the National Trust, who restored the buildings and brought the corn mill back into use. The corn mill continued operating until the late 1990s and was not in use at the time of the original survey in October 2000. The complex is picturesquely set at the end of a lane to the west of Raleagh Road, roughly two and a half miles east of Ballynahinch, with the Ballynahinch River immediately to the west and a mill pond to the south.

The stable is a long, single-storey gabled building lying to the north of the miller's house and to the south of the flax mill. It is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and recorded in the valuation returns of 1836, where it was graded in a range suggesting the valuers believed it to be at least twenty years old at that point, placing its probable origin in the mid to late 18th century. The listing record gives a construction date range of 1820 to 1839, though the broader complex evidence suggests an earlier origin is likely for this structure. It is not entirely clear when the original thatched roof was covered with corrugated metal, but this is thought to have occurred in the early 20th century.

The building has a mainly harled and whitewashed facade. The roof is corrugated iron, whose charcoal colour gives the impression of slate, and conceals the original thatched roof beneath. There are rendered parapets. To the north facade there are four timber-sheeted stable doors and two windows, both largely boarded up. The east gable is blank. To the west gable there is a lean-to with a stable door to its north face, with a late 19th century pump fitting to the right of it. The lean-to has a slated roof. To the west facade are two squat window openings with timber-sheeted coverings, and there is a tiny window opening set high on the west gable of the main stable building. The south facade is blank and largely covered in creeping plant growth, as is that side of the roof.

The stable is considered of special interest both as an important constituent part of the wider Mary Brook complex and in its own right as a rare survival of a thatched stable with its original roof now preserved under corrugated tin. The whole grouping presents a uniform semi-vernacular appearance, characterised by harled and whitewashed facades, slated roofs, Georgian-paned sash windows and timber-sheeted doors, complemented throughout by an abundance of traditional wrought iron farm gates, stone walling and simple gate pillars. The scarcity of such an intact group, and the preservation and character of the complex as a whole, are considered to be of national interest.

At the height of the Mary Brook operation in the late 19th century, the complex employed around 150 people, engaged not only in corn and flax milling but also in a small hemstitching factory situated in a now-modernised building along the main drive off Raleagh Road. The hemstitching factory closed around 1900, the flax mill ceased production a few years later, and the corn mill continued in full-time use until after the First World War, with production coming to a halt by the 1930s. The Silcock family, who are believed to have acquired Mary Brook around 1790 to 1800 from a family named Traill, continued to reside there until the early 1950s, after which the site was abandoned. The Traill connection with the area dates back to 1647, when James Traill, an officer in the Parliamentary army, was granted the townland of Drumnaconagher. His grandson, also named James, is believed to have been the first to settle within the townland, building a house there in 1721. Walter Harris, writing in his Ancient and Present State of the County of Down in 1744, refers to the house as Marybrook, seated on rising ground near a small lake, two miles south-south-east of Ballynahinch, then occupied by James's son Hamilton Traill. The apparent discrepancies between this description and the present situation — the site not appearing to be on rising ground, nor near a small lake, and being closer to three miles east rather than south-south-east of Ballynahinch — can be explained by a considerable drop in ground level to the north of the flax mill, the mill pond or river flood plain accounting for the lake reference, Harris's use of the longer Irish mile, and inaccurate mapping of the period.