Survey Data
Reg No
13900303
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
Miller's house
Date
1840 - 1855
Coordinates
300127, 314161
Date Recorded
13/07/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached four- or five-bay two-storey miller's house, extant 1855, on an L-shaped plan; single-bay (west) or three-bay (east) two-storey side elevations. Vacant, 2005. Hipped slate roof with ridge tiles, red brick Running bond chimney stacks having paired stringcourses below capping, and remains of cast-iron rainwater goods on red brick header bond stepped eaves. Coursed rubble limestone walls on overgrown plinth with red brick quoins to corners. Square-headed central door opening with overgrown threshold, and red brick block-and-start surround with no fittings surviving. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and red brick block-and-start surrounds framing remains of timber fittings. Set in overgrown grounds with rough cut limestone cylindrical piers to perimeter having rough cut limestone capping.
Appraisal
A miller's house representing an integral component of the built heritage of County Louth with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the near-symmetrical façade centred on a canopied doorcase; the construction in unrefined local fieldstone with red brick dressings producing a two-tone palette; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. NOTE: Only fragments survive of the opposing mill which, according to annotations on the Ordnance Survey County Louth Sheet 3, was a centre for the production of corn and flax. The mill was operated (5th July 1855) by William Murdock with the "Ho., corn-mill, offs. & ld." valued at £31 0s. 19d. and Sarah King named as the "Immediate Lessor" (Primary Valuation of Ireland). The production of flax had ceased by the turn of the twentieth century and Arthur Kelly Junior gives his "Particular Profession, Rank or Trade" as "Farmer and Corn Miller" in the Household Return Form of the 1901 Census. The production of corn ceased shortly thereafter and both the Corn Mill and Scutch [Flax] Mill are entered as "Vacant" in the House and Building Return Form of the 1911 Census.