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

Derryleckagh Mills is the fire-gutted shell of a flax spinning mill built around 1806, later converted to flour milling, then flax scutching, and finally partially adapted as a dwelling before being gutted by fire in 1996. It stands on the Hilltown Road outside Newry, County Down, and is of considerable historical significance as one of the first generation of large dry-spinning flax mills erected in Ulster. The complex comprises a main mill block with two returns to the north and north-east, a two-storey office block, associated outbuildings, and a surviving waterwheel. The mill has been delisted following the fire, which destroyed most of the historic fabric; there is no internal machinery.

MAIN BLOCK

The main block is the original spinning mill, located on the west side of the complex and aligned north to south. It is three and a half storeys high and three bays wide. The roof formerly had a pitched natural slate covering with boxed eaves. There are rendered brick chimneys to the party wall between the middle and right bays (as viewed from the west) and on the south gable. The walls are of random granite rubble brought to courses.

The principal (west) elevation is divided into three bays: the left bay is two openings wide, the middle bay five openings wide, and the right bay six openings wide, all to the upper floors. All openings have smooth cement-rendered architraves and concrete cills. The windows were 1/1 sliding sashes with the top panel smaller than the bottom, with exposed sashes, though the frames are now mostly gone. The left bay is internally divided into four floors plus an attic, though it shares the same external height as the rest of the block. At ground floor level in the middle bay there is a door with a window flanking either side, and two windows to each of the upper floors (but not the attic), aligned with those below. The middle bay has five regularly spaced windows to all upper floors. The second opening from the left at ground floor level contains a pair of windows in a shared opening. The right bay has a doorway at ground floor left and a second at ground floor right, with three window openings between them; the rightmost of these contains a pair of windows. There are six regularly spaced window openings to the two floors above.

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

The rear (east) façade is entered at first floor level, as a partly covered passage runs along the outside of the ground floor. The left bay has a door at the centre flanked on both sides by two windows, with two windows to the basement and six to the second floor. The middle bay is abutted by a single-storey mono-pitched extension of unrendered random rubble, with a door and window on its left cheek. The right bay is wet-dashed, with a door at first floor right and a window to the left, and three windows to the second floor, all enlargements of the original openings.

The south gable is cement-rendered with an advanced chimney breast. There is a window to each side of the breast at first floor, second floor, and attic levels. This gable also contains an external waterwheel pit housing a high breast-shot waterwheel measuring 6.10 metres in diameter by 2.18 metres wide (20 feet by 7 feet). The wheel is of cast-iron construction with two sets of eight wooden arms and a timber soleplate, and has 56 angled buckets with wrought sheet iron on their outer section and timber on the inner section. The rim segments are inscribed "Newry Foundry & Engineers 1878". Segment gear wheels were originally affixed to both sets of arms, but only those on the outer set now survive; these formerly drove a flax mill on the opposite side of the wheel. On the opposite side of the waterwheel from the spinning mill gable there is a concrete mounting block, possibly for an engine drive. A metal pipe off the headrace suggests there may once have been a small water turbine in this area as well.

OFFICE BLOCK

The office block adjoins the north gable of the main block and is two storeys high with a pitched natural slate roof. There is a bellcote on the exposed north gable. The walls are of random rubble. The west elevation has a small two-pane window at ground floor level and two 9/6 sash windows at first floor level, the left one now gone. A small gable rises from the eaves and formerly contained a clock. The north gable is blank. The east elevation is exposed only at first floor level due to the rising ground, and contains a door to the left and a window to the right.

RETURN 1

The main block continues to the left as a long return running northward, internally divided into four bays at ground floor level 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 an attic. The right bay (as viewed from the north) is four storeys high and has a door at ground floor, a window at first floor, and two windows each at second and third floor levels. The corresponding south elevation (facing the rear yard) has two windows at second and third floor levels only. The third bay from the left has a large flat-headed coachway at ground floor level; due to the rising ground, this is level with the first floor of the bay to its right. There are two windows to each of the two floors above on both the north and south elevations. The second bay from the left has a window at ground floor and two windows each at first and second floor levels on the north elevation, with the south elevation blank and single windows at first and second floor levels. A mill race passes underneath the floor of this bay. The left bay is two storeys internally, though it shares the same eaves height as the bays to the right. The north elevation has three windows, and the south elevation has a door (leading to the second return), a window at ground floor, and two windows at first floor level (which is equivalent to the third floor of the right-hand bay). The east gable has a doorway at attic floor level.

RETURN 2

The north return is abutted at the east end of its south elevation by a three-storey return of the same eaves height as Return 1. This area is now heavily overgrown and impossible to access. 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 south-east corner of the yard to supply the waterwheel on the south gable of the main block.

MISCELLANEOUS OUTBUILDINGS

Immediately to the south of the spinning mill are three later buildings formerly associated with flax scutching: a single-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.

HISTORICAL NOTE

John Gordon established a bleachworks at Templegowran sometime during the second half of the 18th century or the first decade of the 19th century, though it is uncertain which, if any, of the existing buildings relate to this phase. Around 1806 the present main block was erected as a dry-spinning mill for flax. The Linen Trustees are recorded as having provided Gordon with a 50% grant for the installation of 204 flax spindles. Although the superior wet-spinning technique became widespread from the late 1820s onwards, it does not appear to have been adopted here. Instead, the mill was converted to flour milling, and is captioned as such on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, which shows the complex in its present form. The first valuation book of around 1835 describes the main block as measuring 117 feet by 28 feet in plan and 36 feet high, and records it as being in the ownership of Samuel Parsons, nephew of John Gordon, who had died in 1833. By the time of the second valuation in 1861, the premises belonged to Isaac Parsons, and the mill then contained four pairs of millstones for grinding wheat and maize, though two sets of stones were idle and some buildings were unoccupied. Around 1868 the property passed to James Grant, and then to Samuel Cooper around 1877, who was probably responsible for installing the present waterwheel. Flax scutching appears to have begun around 1888, though it had ceased by 1906; the small single-storey rubble mill at the south-west end of the complex probably relates to this phase. Grain milling had ceased by 1915, when the Fibre Company Ltd took over the site and began retting and scutching, and was most likely responsible for erecting the two-storey brick mill. The firm, which later became the Fibre Corporation, continued flax processing into the 1920s. By the late 1930s all industrial activity had ceased, and the mill was partly converted to living accommodation around 1940. It was gutted by fire in 1996.

The erection of this mill in 1806 makes it one of the first generation of large dry-spinning flax mills built in Ulster, and therefore of significant historical interest. Architecturally, its scale was at the time matched only by the large flour mills of the period. The surviving late 19th century waterwheel also gives the site technical interest.