Survey Data

Reg No

31215016


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural


Previous Name

Ballinrobe House


Original Use

Mill (water)


Date

1735 - 1818


Coordinates

119040, 264580


Date Recorded

24/11/2010


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Mill complex, extant 1818, including (east): Attached four-bay six-storey mill on a rectangular plan with two-bay full-height side elevations. Decommissioned, 1884. Now in ruins. Pitched roof now missing with no rainwater goods surviving on cut-limestone eaves. Part ivy-covered roughcast coursed or snecked limestone walls with drag edged tooled cut-limestone quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings with cut-limestone sills, and concealed tooled limestone ashlar voussoirs framing remains of ten-over-fifteen or ten-over-ten (upper floors) timber sash windows having part exposed sash boxes. Interior in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds.

Appraisal

A tower-like mill representing an important component of the industrial heritage of south County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one clearly illustrating the continued development or "improvement" of a complex immortalised in "The Mill, Ballinrobe" (1818) by James Arthur O'Connor (1792-1841), confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. A prolonged period of neglect notwithstanding, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric, thus upholding much of the character or integrity of a mill making a dramatic, if increasingly forlorn visual statement overlooking the Robe River.