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
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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.
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.