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

This small single-storey cottage forms part of an extensive and largely complete 'Georgian vernacular' rural milling complex at Mary Brook, dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries. The wider complex includes water-powered two-storey corn and flax mills and a single-storey stable block, all probably dating from the mid to late 18th century, a two-storey miller's house of 1837, and subsidiary structures including this cottage and a storehouse, both dating from around the 1840s. The cottage is listed together with an attached wall and gatepost as an attractive and well-proportioned constituent part of the complex.

The cottage sits to the west of the stable and north of the miller's house. Its façade is similar in character to that of the adjacent stable, and it has a slated gabled roof. On the south-facing front elevation there is a timber sheeted door and a 16-pane window. On the north side there is a further timber sheeted door, and set high in the east gable is a small four-pane window. The building appears currently to be used as a shed. To the east of the cottage, an attached whitewashed wall terminates in a circular whitewashed gatepost.

The whole Mary Brook complex has a uniform, semi-vernacular appearance, with harled and whitewashed facades, slated roofs, Georgian-paned sash windows, and timber sheeted doors. This character is further reinforced by an abundance of traditional wrought iron farm gates, stone walling, and simple gate pillars. 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 cottage is first shown on the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1858 and is believed to have been built around the same time as the miller's present two-storey house in 1837, or shortly thereafter. The 1861 valuation records the wider complex in the possession of Christiana Silcock, who leased it from Alexander John and Robert Stewart. At its height in the late 19th century, the Mary Brook complex employed around 150 people, engaged not only in corn and flax milling but also in a small hemstitching factory. 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 halting by the 1930s. The Silcock family, who are believed to have acquired Mary Brook from a family named Traill around 1790 to 1800, continued to reside there until the early 1950s, after which the entire site was abandoned and fell into decay.

In the early 1970s the complex 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 present owner acquired the complex in 1998, and at the time of the listing record (October 2000) the corn mill was no longer in operation. The cottage itself was formerly used as a house and is currently in use as an outbuilding. Its architectural interest lies in its style, proportions, and setting, and in its group value as part of the wider Mary Brook complex. It also holds local historical interest.