Ballybot House, 28 Corn Market, Newry, Co Down, BT35 8BG

Ballybot House is a three-storey, 16-bay rubble granite spinning mill on the west side of Corn Market in Newry. Built between 1860 and 1879, it was originally constructed as a flax mill by Robert Dempster. The 1863 Valuation Book records the flax mill "in progress", and it opened in 1865 to spin flax, jute and hemp. According to historical sources, it was once the largest dry spinning mill in Ireland and was powered by a 40-horsepower steam engine. The valuation indicates the building was originally two and a half storeys high, with an attic floor as suggested by surviving first-floor ceiling construction. The mill's jack arch fireproof ceilings are of note and are similar to those at Dromalane Mill, another of Newry's three spinning mills.

Robert Kerr, the mill's manager, took over ownership in 1906 and ran it until his death in 1921. The mill closed in 1927. During the Second World War it served as an army billet. After the war it was purchased by the Manchester-based textile firm Stark Brothers, who operated it as a clothing factory. It was subsequently occupied by Armaghdown Creameries around the 1960s and taken over by Haldane Fisher, builders' suppliers, in the early 1980s. The building fell into dereliction after being abandoned in 1990.

The structure is aligned north-south with a hipped roof covered in concrete tiles, fitted with plastic vents and a vertical metal chimney flue rising from the rear wall. The walls are of random rubble granite with roughly dressed granite quoins and a six-course red-brick eaves course with the top three courses corbelled. Cyma-recta cast-iron rainwater goods are present. The evident joint line on the top-floor walls reflects the addition of this storey during recent refurbishment.

The front elevation contains 16 evenly-spaced bays. Along the ground floor, windows occupy bays 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and 16. All are 2/2 bottom-opening windows in PVC frames with stepped red-brick jambs, shallow segmental brick heads and granite cills. Between these windows are five wide openings with brick jambs and heads, now fitted with glazed modern shop fronts and doors with wooden fascias and roller shutters above. These replace the original window and door openings. The first floor contains 16 equally-spaced windows identical to those on the ground floor. The second floor has a corresponding set of 16 windows in line with those below, identical except for being smaller with flat heads and cast concrete cills. The right gable is blank except for a modern door opening on the ground floor, with a glass panel in a metal frame within a stepped red-brick surround.

The rear elevation is also 16 bays wide. On the ground floor from left to right, the openings comprise: bays 1 and 2 with two high tongue-and-groove rectangular panels with doors in their bottom halves; bays 3 to 6 with four PVC 2/2 bottom-opening windows with concrete cills; bays 7 to 9 as bays 1 and 2; bay 10 infilled; bays 11 to 14 as bays 3 to 6 but with granite cills; bay 15 with an elliptically headed doorway containing a two-leaf tongue-and-groove door and panelled head; and bay 16 as bays 1 and 2. All new openings have stepped jambs in matching red brick. The ghost of two one-storey gabled returns is visible on bays 1 to 4. The first and second floors have 16 window openings similar to the front elevation, with granite cills on the first floor and concrete on the second. On both floors, the opening in the ninth bay from the left is infilled with stone. The left gable is blank except for a high semicircular-headed brick window arch, now rendered over. Above and at the side of this opening are three square holes delineated by granite blocks, now infilled, which possibly supported bearing blocks for mill shafts. There is no trace of the chimney from the steam engine boiler, which formerly stood in the yard to the south-west.

An associated building adjoins the mill to the rear. The building was acquired by the Confederation of Community Groups in 1994, refurbished and reopened in March 1997 for office and retail use. While the mill is of significant industrial archaeological interest and historical importance to Newry's linen industry, modernisation has compromised its architectural and historic status.