Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB21/04/008

Address :
Orpin's Mill Orpinsmill Road Dunamoy Doagh Ballyclare Co Antrim BT39 0SX

Townland:
Dunamoy

---

Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
23/12/2011 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Mill

Former Use
Mill

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
Yes

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
Partially

---

OS Map No:
82/14

IG Ref:
J2595 9346

---

Owner Category

Housing

Exterior Description And Setting

Plain, sturdy rubble-built hipped roof H-plan two storey corn mill of c.1840, formerly water-driven but now vacant with openings largely bricked up and water wheel removed. The mill is set on a slope right on the W of the roadsid, roughly 3 miles NW of Ballyclare in a small settlement which bears its name - ‘Orpinsmill’. To the immediate S of the mill is a short terrace of rubble-built two storey houses, built in the 1840s for the mill workers and their families. The front elevation of the building actually faces NE, but for the purposes of this description NW will be taken as E, NW as N etc. The mill consists of two large two storey hipped roof blocks linked by a now roofless two storey link. The block to the S is larger than that to N and is fully two storey due to the relatively level ground to the end. To E side of the block there is a single storey roofless projection where the waterwheel was originally located. The N block is built into the side of relatively steep rising ground and, as a consequence is single storey when viewed from direct N. The walls are in roughly squared basalt rubble, with subtle differences in the coursing revealing something of the property’s evolution. The front elevation of the building is asymmetrical. To left is the E face of the S block which has a relatively large and relatively recent looking flat arched vehicle doorway to the left on the ground floor. This is a metal sheeted door, metal lintel and cement rendered jambs. To the first floor are two relatively small windows, both filled in breeze block (all the other blocked up openings are filled in in the same fashion). The E face of the linking section is set well back from the E faces of the two main blocks and has a blocked up window to the right on the ground floor, and a smaller blocked up window roughly to the centre of the first floor. The E face of the N block has one small blocked up window to the centre of the first floor, with the remains of a timber two pane frame still in situ. The short N face of the S block (i.e. that portion facing in the large recess created by the set back linking section) is blank, however the outline of a former ground floor window can be discerned. The equivalent (S) face of the N block has a (largely) blocked up window to the first floor. The S elevation consists solely of the S block (including the tall single storey waterwheel projection to the E end). To the ground floor there is a blocked up window to far left, then a pedestrian doorway with metal sheeted door then two more blocked up windows. To the first floor are four more blocked up windows. All of these openings are regularly spaced. To the water wheel projection there is a the remains of a high level window opening The N face of the N block (which is single storey) has three (roughly) regularly spaced openings, all blocked. The outer openings were small windows, whilst that to the centre appears to have been a doorway. The rear (W) elevation largely follows the front in mirrored fashion with the two projecting blocks and recessed link, the S block projects further to W than that to N, however, and also sports the water wheel projection. The W face of the N block (which is part single and part two storey due to the sloping ground) is devoid of openings. The short S face (which faces into the recess) has a blocked up window to the first floor. The W face of the linking section has a blocked up window to the left on the ground floor, with a large portion of walling missing to the right of this (there may have been another opening here). To the centre of the first floor are the remains of another window opening (again, much of the stone has fallen away from the away around this window). To the N face of the S block there is a blocked up window to right on the first floor. To the W face of the block is the water wheel projection, which practically covers the whole of the ground floor level. The projection has a pedestrian doorway to far right on its W face and its short N face has lost most of its walling. To the exposed first floor of the W face of the S block there are two blocked up window openings. The whole of the building is basalt stone which is largely (and roughly) squared throughout, though in no way uniform and with significant portions in rubble. The coursing of the stone to the S block suggests that this section was originally single storey (the regularity of most of its openings also suggests it is later than the rest of the building). Both main blocks has a plain eaves course. The roofs of both the N ad the S blocks are both hipped and slated, though not insignificant sections of slate are missing, especially to the N block. The linking section and the water wheel projection are both roofless. No rw goods. Setting Set on a hillside laid mostly in rough grass with the mill workers houses to the south along the road.

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

A smaller building of different plan to the present is shown on this general site on the OS map 1832 with some further buildings on the opposite (eastern) side of the road. The valuation returns of c.1836 record the buildings on the eastern side of the road as a long but modest single / 1½ storey house with a single storey outbuilding in the hands of a Hugh Duncan, but nothing is said of those to the west. The OS Memoirs of the previous year do mention a corn mill within the townland (Dunamoy) ‘propelled by an overshot water wheel of 15 feet in diameter and 2 feet 6 inches broad…with a kiln attached to it’ but strangely the valuations make no mention of any structures of this kind in area at all. Perhaps this earlier mill had ceased working by 1836. The present building is shown on the revised OS map of 1857 and recorded as a two storey slated corn mill with two storey kiln and single storey ‘wheel house’ in the valuation of 1860. At this point the property was in the possession of Charles Langtry esq*, was rated at £30 with its B+ ‘quality letter’ suggesting it may have been built c.1840 or perhaps a few years earlier; it had ‘3 pair of stones [for the] shelling and grinding of hard corn’ with a wheel of 22ft by 4 and worked ‘12 hours a day 6 months in the year’. The row of houses to the south (probably for the mill workers) is also recorded. Charles Langtry died in 1863 or 1864 and in the latter year a John Gilmore is recorded as the occupant, with a James A. Wiley the following year, and a John Fleming in 1866. Fleming vacated the premises some time prior to 1890 (the valuations are not clear on the exact date) and the lease passed to a John Lewis, whose descendants are believed to have worked the mill until c.1980 (though one suspects the closure date may have been somewhat earlier than this. According to a local resident, the property was subsequently sold to near by Springvale bleachworks who -wishing only to make use of the water rights- later sold the building. All machinery is beloved to have been removed from the building in the 1980s. A valuers description of the property in 1934 reads: ‘A fairly substantial…corn mill getting its motive power from a 24[ft] diameter water wheel x 4[ft]. The mill works for 5 to 6 months each year- long hours when working (equivalent to 8 months in normal hours). The quantity of material dealt with is stated to be about 400-500 tons per annum. Equipment- one pair of shellers 2hp, 2 pair of grinders 6hp, 1 [?]bruising machine 3hp, 1 pair [of] small emery stones say 4hp’. [*The Langtrys may have been a milling ‘dynasty’ similar to the Magiltons in Co. Down- there was a John ‘Langtree’ was working the Manor mill in Newtownards in the 1830s.] References- Primary sources 1 PRONI OS/6/1/45/1 OS map, Co Antrim sh 45, 1832 2 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland’ vol.32, ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (Belfast 1995), p.137 [1835] 3 PRONI VAL/1B/111 First valuation, Rashee parish, 1836 4 PRONI OS/6/1/45/2 OS map, Co Antrim sh 45, 1857 5 PRONI VAL/2B/1/10 Second valuation, Rashee parish, 1860[-63] 6 PRONI VAL/12B/1/25A-F Annual valuation revision books, Rashee ED, 1864-1929 7 PRONI VAL/3D/1/1V/2 Valuers rural valuation binder, Rashee, [c.1934+] 8 PRONI VAL/3B/1/2 General revaluation book, Rashee, 1935 Secondary sources 1 Information supplied by a local resident

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form J. Setting

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Plain, sturdy rubble-built hipped roof H-plan two storey corn mill of c.1840, formerly water-driven but now vacant. Although its openings are largely bricked up and water wheel removed, this mill group is of an unusual layout and is representative of the many small mills formerly to be found throughout the Province. It maintains a significant presence in this rural location and has local interest.

General Comments

Date of Survey

08 January 2003