Survey Data
Reg No
40909229
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social, Technical
Original Use
Creamery
Historical Use
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1900 - 1925
Coordinates
183253, 378387
Date Recorded
12/10/2007
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey double-pile former co-operative creamery with attic level, built c. 1903 and rebuilt or partially rebuilt c. 1921/2. Loading platform the south-west side elevation. Now out of use (since early 1970s). Pitched natural slate roofs with smooth rendered chimneystacks to southwest gable ends, and with cast-iron rainwater goods. Iron skylights to roof, four to north-west facing pitches (two to each north-west pitch). Roughcast rendered finish over roughly squared rubble stone construction (exposed in places) and with roughly dressed flush quoins. Segmental- and square-headed window openings with fixed timber-casement windows and timber sliding sash windows, and with some dressed sandstone sills. Number of window openings now boarded. Square-headed vents to attic level at gable ends having timber louvered vents to openings. Square-headed door openings to gable ends with timber battened doors. Square-headed carriage-arch to south-west gable with timber battened double doors, accessed via loading ramp. Multi-pane overlight to one door opening to the southwest gable end. Flight of steps to northeast gable having iron swinging crane mechanism. Outline of former single-storey leant-to annex to north-west elevation, now demolished (c. 2006). Interior contains working intact buttery and mechanisms of creamery, c. 1930, including a large timber and metal churn. Set within own grounds with ruinous single-storey outbuilding to rear (east), having roughly squared rubble stone walls (roughcast rendered to side elevations), pitched roof (now collapsed), and square-headed door opening to northwest gable end. Low rubble stone boundary wall to frontage to west. Gateway to the south-west end of boundary wall comprising a pair of rubble stone gate piers (on square-plan) having a wrought-iron flat bar gate. Millrace associated with former corn mill (40909201) located to west runs across the north side of the site. Located to the south of associated former creamery manager’s house (40909206), and to the west of Inver.
Appraisal
This former creamery building retains much of its early form and character despite being out of use for a considerable period. It represents an early surviving example of its type and acts as an historical reminder of the Co-operative Movement in Ireland during the late-nineteenth and the early-twentieth century. It is of additional historical and social merit as one of the earliest surviving co-operative creamery buildings in this part of Ireland and it is one of the very few that maintains much of its early creamery machinery and plant to the interior, which adds additional industrial heritage merit to the site. This machinery includes an intact early timber and metal butter churn, fly wheels and pulley systems, and metal storage tanks. The creamery was one seventeen co-operative creameries established in the throughout Donegal between 1896 and 1905, a county that was relatively enthusiastic towards the Co-operative Movement. The majority of these were constructed on the more fertile agricultural lands to the east of the county, but few of these structures are now still extant. This building at Inver is well-built in robust local sandstone, and its simple form is indicative of its original functional purposes. It retains much of its early fabric including timber casement windows and natural slate roofs, which add to the patina of age and historic integrity of this unassuming structure. There was formerly a single-storey (brick and corrugated metal) annex to the northwest elevation, recently demolished. The Co-operative Movement was established in Ireland during the 1880s by Horace Plunkett (1854 – 1932), a politician and agricultural reformer, and later the founder of the Agricultural Organisational Society in 1894. Inver Creamery was originally built in 1903 (established by the Irish Agricultural Society) and was constructed by voluntary local labour. The stone was provided free from a local sandstone quarry near Mountcharles (McGongle’s quarry, still in operation). It had 300 registered members in its first year, and its membership reached a peak in the 1930s with over 360 members. Like most creameries, Inver Creamery was completely owned and run by local farmers. In its first year Inver creamery purchased 104,635 gallons of milk at 3.52d per gallon, and manufactured 44,533 lbs of butter (O’Donnell 1995). The butter produced here was considered to be of a high standard, and the creamery was approved to use the quality national trade mark by the Irish Butter Control Body from 1910 (O’Donnell 1995). The creamery was rebuilt or partially rebuilt c. 1921/1922 after it was damaged by British forces in 1921 during the War of Independence (creameries were often targeted during the war as suspected centres of sedition etc.). The extent of the damage to the creamery, and the subsequent extent of the rebuilding, is difficult to ascertain. These rebuilding works were carried out under the direction of William James Doherty (1887 - 1951), a Derry-born architect that worked extensively in County Donegal from c. 1915 until his death. Inver Creamery also formerly had a retail outlet to part of the building, which sold farm supplies and acted as a general grocery and hardware shop. The shop only ceased trading in 1971 following the death of the last creamery manager (Dan Feely). Inver Creamery forms a pair of related structures along with the associated former creamery manager’s house to the north-west (40909206), and is an integral element of the built heritage of the Inver area. The creamery is located adjacent to the upper section of the millrace of the derelict Inver Corn Mill (40909201), which can be found a short distance to the west, and this attests to a long-standing industrial presence on this site. The simple boundary wall and gate piers, and the ruinous outbuilding to the east, complete the setting of this interesting composition.