Derryleckagh Mills, Hilltown Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2SQ

Derryleckagh Mills

A fire-gutted shell of an early 19th-century flax spinning mill complex retaining its waterwheel and returns to the north and northeast.

Main Block

The principal spinning mill, aligned north-south on the west side of the complex, is three and a half storeys high by three bays wide. The walls are of random granite rubble brought to courses. The roof was formerly pitched natural slate with boxed eaves. Rendered brick chimneys are positioned to the party wall between the middle and right bays and on the south gable.

The principal (west) elevation has the left bay two openings wide, the middle bay five openings, and the right bay six openings to the upper floors. All openings have smooth cement-rendered architraves with concrete cills. The windows were 1/1 sliding sash with the top panel smaller and exposed sashes, though frames are now mostly gone. A door serves the ground floor middle section, with windows flanking either side. Two windows to each of the upper floors (but not the attic) are in line with those to the ground floor. The middle bay contains five regularly spaced windows to all upper floors. A pair of windows shares a single opening on the ground floor, second from the left. The right bay has doorways to the ground floor at left and right, with three window openings between them; the rightmost contains a pair of windows. Six regularly spaced window openings serve the second and third floors.

The north gable is abutted to ground and first floor level by a two-storey office block. The ground rises to first-floor level at the left of this elevation. The exposed gable above the office has a first-floor window and door just left of the abutting block. The second and third floors each have two windows, and the attic one.

The rear (east) elevation is entered at first-floor level via a partly covered passage running along the outside of the ground floor. The left bay has a central door flanked by two windows; its basement contains two windows and its second floor six windows. The middle bay is abutted by a one-storey monopitched unrendered random rubble extension with door and window on the left cheek. The right bay is wet dashed with a door at first-floor right and window to the left. Three windows to the second floor are enlargements of the original openings.

The left bay is internally divided into four floors plus an attic, though it matches the external height of the rest of the block.

The south gable is cement rendered with an advanced chimney breast. A window flanks each side of the breast on the first and second floors and attic. An external waterwheel pit containing the principal feature of the complex occupies this gable: a high breast-shot waterwheel of cast-iron construction, 6.10 metres in diameter by 2.18 metres wide. It has two sets of eight wooden arms and a timber soleplate, with 56 angled buckets of wrought sheet iron on the outer section and timber on the inner section. The rim segments are inscribed 'Newry Foundry & Engineers 1878'. Segment gear wheels were affixed to both sets of arms, but only that on the outer set survives; this formerly drove a flax mill on the opposite side of the waterwheel.

Office Block

Located on the north gable of the main block, this two-storey structure has a pitched natural slate roof and a bellcote on the exposed north gable. The walls are of random rubble. The west elevation contains a small two-pane window to the ground floor and two 9/6 sashes to the first floor (the left one now missing). A small gable formerly containing a clock rises from the eaves. The north gable is blank. The east elevation is exposed to first-floor level only, as the ground rises, and contains a door to the left and a window to the right.

Return 1 (North Return)

This long block continues left from the main building, internally divided into four bays at ground floor but open to all floors above. Its eaves height is slightly higher than the main block and it formerly had a hipped natural slate roof and attic. Viewed from the north, the right bay is four storeys high with a ground-floor door, a first-floor window, and two windows each to the second and third floors. The corresponding south elevation (to the rear yard) has two windows to the second and third floors only.

The third bay from the left has a large flat-headed coachway at ground level; due to rising ground, this is level with the first floor of the adjacent bay. Two windows serve each of the two floors above. The south elevation of this bay has similar openings.

The second bay from the left has a ground-floor window and two windows each to the first and second floors. A mill race passes underneath the floor. Its south elevation has no windows on the ground floor, with single windows to the first and second floors.

The left bay is two storeys internally but matches the eaves height of the bays to its right. The north elevation has three windows. The south elevation has a door (to the second return), a ground-floor window, and two first-floor windows (equivalent to the third floor of the righthand bay). Its east gable has an attic floor doorway.

Return 2 (East Return)

A three-storey return abutts the east end of the south elevation of Return 1, with the same eaves height as Return 1. It is now heavily overgrown and inaccessible. A mill race is carried in a concrete pipe across the outside of its west-facing elevation on a raised concrete wall. A branch is taken off at the southeast corner of the yard to supply the waterwheel on the south gable of the main block.

Miscellaneous Outbuildings

South of the spinning mill stand three later buildings formerly associated with flax scutching: a one-storey flax mill of random rubble construction with brick quoins; a two-storey brick building, probably also a scutch mill; and a two-storey shed, probably a flax store.

On the opposite side of the waterwheel from the spinning mill gable is a concrete mounting block, possibly for an engine drive. A metal pipe off the headrace indicates that a small water turbine may once have been located there as well.