Ballykeel Mill Mill Road Ballykeel Mullaghbawn Co. Armagh BT35 9TZ

Ballykeel Mill, Mullaghbawn, County Armagh

Ballykeel Mill is a roadside complex of single-storey mill buildings dating to around 1800, situated on the east side of Mill Road just south of Ballykeel Bridge in Ballykeel townland, Mullaghbawn. The listing covers the mill buildings together with the tailrace, turbine housing, walling and gate. The complex predates the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1835 and represents an increasingly rare survival of rural industrial heritage in the local area, with a history spanning agrarian unrest, both World Wars, and the rise and fall of the local flax industry.

Historical Background

The mill likely dates to around 1800. The road on which it stands does not appear on Rocque's 1760 map of County Armagh, though an "intended road" in the vicinity may have become the present Mill Road in the closing decades of the 18th century. The first edition OS map of 1835 captions the site as a "Corn Mill" opposite an associated dwelling house. By 1836 the Townland Valuation recorded a house, corn mill and kiln on the site, valued at £4. The corn mill building was slated and measured 37 by 19 by 11 feet. The valuator described it as "not new" but in "sound order and good repair," while the kiln was "slightly decayed but in good repair." The mill was water-powered with one pair of stones working and another pair being prepared. It operated for four months of the year. The occupier, William Delaney, paid £15 rent for the mill and an acre of land but held no lease. The valuator commented scathingly that it was an "inferior mill."

By 1857, when the mill is recorded in the Agricultural Statistics of Ireland, a flax scutching mill had been added to the site with four stocks working thirteen weeks a year. The second edition OS map of 1862 shows a new building and flax mill added to the south. Griffith's Valuation records that ownership had changed by this time, with Terence Doran leasing from local landlord Henry Alexander. The corn mill then had two pairs of stones working in turns — one for shelling and one for grinding — and a set of elevators. The flax mill had four stocks. Both mills worked approximately three months a year, twelve hours a day. The two water wheels were identical in size: 13½ feet in diameter, 36 buckets, three feet wide, one foot deep, with a seven-foot fall.

The flax scutching mill suffered a serious setback in 1872, when it was "wholly consumed" by fire, thought to have been caused by friction from the machinery generating sparks. All the flax was destroyed and the premises was uninsured, though an advertisement in the Newry Telegraph suggests compensation was subsequently received from the West of England Insurance Company. The mill appears to have been repaired and passed to John O'Hare around 1880. In September 1881 the mill was again destroyed by fire, this time apparently maliciously. O'Hare claimed £150 from Ballybot presentment sessions for malicious burning. He stated he had purchased the property in 1878 for £100, spent around £70 improving it, and had faced hostility from neighbours who told him "he had no right to be there." The claim was contested, with witnesses alleging scutchers had been smoking in the flax store. The court initially awarded £50; on appeal to the Armagh Grand Jury, O'Hare claimed he had been threatened by members of the Land League who objected to him scutching for a farmer who was not a member. The court increased compensation to £100, to be funded by a levy on the cesspayers of the surrounding townlands. The valuation books of 1882 record the corn mill as having no machinery, and the flax mill as burned; both were struck from the records and the valuation of the house and outbuildings reduced to £4.

By 1887 the flax mill reappeared in valuation records, valued at £6 and now having six stocks and three rollers. It appears the flax mill was re-established within the building that had formerly housed the corn mill, with the original flax mill building converted to a store. The third edition OS map captions the complex as "Ballykeel Mill (Flax)." By the 1901 revaluation the mill was valued at £4. The motive power was rated at 4½ horsepower and six stocks remained, though only two had worked in 1899 and three in 1900; the mill generally operated for about eight hours a day over a season of two to three months, though it had worked for only about a fortnight in 1900. The 1901 census records John O'Hare, a fifty-year-old farmer and mill owner, living in the three-room mill dwelling house with his wife and five children.

By the 1933 revaluation the mill had passed to Joseph O'Hare, most likely John's second son. The mill still had six stocks driven by a water wheel measuring 14 by 4 feet. The rollers appear to have been driven by a Hornsby 16 horsepower oil engine, though the motor was not working in 1933 — the head had blown out and the piston rod was broken. The buildings were in poor condition in the early 1930s and had not worked since the First World War, except for two days in 1931. A valuer's binder plan from the 1930s shows that a single-storey extension to the front elevation and a rear extension, both then roofed in felt, had been added to the mill; these extensions survive today, subsequently reroofed in slate. The rear extension housed the oil engine.

The mill appears to have enjoyed a further period of active use after this time, most likely driven by increased demand for linen during the Second World War. A hydroelectric turbine manufactured by Robert Craig and Sons of Belfast, dated 1944, was fitted in place of the earlier water wheel, and the mill race was rebuilt in concrete block. The mill ceased to function in the 1950s with the local decline of the flax industry. Photographs from the McCutcheon archive dating to the 1960s, held in the Industrial Heritage Record, show the possible former kiln to the north as roofless, partially collapsed and derelict, and the main mill building with a partially collapsed roof. The mill building and former kiln have since been restored and reroofed, with much of the internal scutching machinery retained within the main mill building, as well as the water-powered turbine.

Description of the Buildings

The complex consists of two principal structures: the main mill building (Building A), which faces west with a projecting bay to the right, and a detached single-storey block to the north with its gable facing west (Building B).

Building A has a natural slate pitched roof with flush (dry) verges and proprietary black fibre cement ridge tiles. The walling throughout is random local rubblestone, with no fascia boards or rainwater goods. The west-facing front elevation is three bays wide. The left-hand end bay is stone-faced and blank. The central bay has a pair of full-height, painted, vertically-sheeted timber doors. The right-hand projecting bay has a catslide roof with raised concrete verges; it contains a full-height timber-sheeted door to the left and a top-hung, painted timber-framed window to the right with a stone sill. A top-hung, painted timber-framed window with stone sill is also present on the left-hand side return. Beyond the projecting bay, to the right, a high-level poured-concrete structure supported on a concrete column terminates the mill race. A low-level roadside rubblestone wall defines the enclosure for the turbine mechanism and water discharge outlet below.

The rear elevation follows a T-plan form, with three bays and a central projection. The natural slate pitched roof has flush (dry) verges and proprietary black fibre cement ridge tiles, and rubblestone walling throughout with no fascia boards or rainwater goods. The left-hand bay has a single square-headed window opening with a natural stone head and sill, fitted with a single-pane painted timber-framed window. The central projection has a flush verge with a single square-headed, timber-framed window opening to the gable, with a natural stone head and sill. The right-hand bay is blank. The north-facing elevation has a flush verge and a single high-level square-headed window opening with a natural stone head and sill. The north-facing elevation of the rear projection has a full-height vertically-sheeted timber door, with evidence of built-in stone quoins on the external corner. The south elevation is dominated by the high-level cast-concrete mill race structure to the east, terminating at the point of contact with the turbine.

Building B, to the north, is connected to Building A by a double metal gate and a high rubblestone wall. Its west-facing gable to the roadside has a natural slate pitched roof with raised concrete verges and proprietary black fibre cement ridge tiles, and rubblestone walling throughout with no fascia boards or rainwater goods. The south-facing elevation has a full-height vertically-sheeted timber door and, to its left, a single square-headed window opening with a natural stone head and sill containing a one-over-one timber sliding sash window. The rear elevation has a centrally positioned square-headed window of the same type.

Still present within the mill building are six flax scutching stocks, with their wooden handles removed. The building also retains a cast-iron mangle by Anderson and Houston of Larne.

The dimensions noted in the 1836 Townland Valuation for the corn kiln (24 by 20 by 11 feet) roughly correspond to Building B, though this building does not appear roofed on the first edition OS map — an unroofed area shown may indicate that the building was subsequently reroofed.

Setting

The complex sits directly on the roadside, separated from Mill Road by a grass verge. The asymmetrical arrangement of stone-faced buildings, walls and gates gives the group a rustic character well suited to its rural surroundings. The mill race is supplied from higher ground to the east.