Mill Cottage, Tobermoney, Downpatrick

It is many years since Mill Cottage was lived in, but it has been in the Martin family for generations, and when it seemed there might be a future for it as a holiday cottage they suggested it for the Rural Cottage Holidays scheme being run by the NI Tourist Board. Sadly, RCH never developed their scheme in Co Down, although the cottages we recently restored at Ballydugan had been intended for it, and the Martins also decided to develop their cottage on their own.

Restoration work started in January 2003, with contractors P & S Contracts of Castlewellan, and some grant aid from the Tourist Board.

The cottage is single-storey and consisted of four rooms in a row with the ruins of the old mill from which it gets its name lying between the end of the cottage and a nearby stream. As the cottage was opened up it became apparent that like many others it had started life as something much smaller. The present living room was added on beyond the kitchen, as can be seen from the arrangement of stones in the front elevation, while the former mill building has a deeper plan. Some stonework, probably the structure supporting the mill wheel itself, remains at the side of the stream, but the mill proper is completely roofless. The roof of the living room had nearly collapsed after years of water penetration.

Inside the cottage some of the walls had been painted with a traditional sky blue distemper (sometimes made by mixing Reckitt's Blue with distemper), and the old timber sheeted ceilings had metal shields to protect them from the heat of oil lamps. The old kitchen range had been blocked up, but it has been re-opened, and traces of the original mantelpiece are still visible. The hearth for the bedroom fireplace consisted of two large curiously shaped slabs of stone, almost certainly recycled from some other building - possibly they were steps from a spiral staircase.

The restored cottage is now open for holiday letting and has been imaginatively furnished and planted out by the Martins. The kitchen has traditional furniture including a dresser and there is a stove in the old fireplace. The main bedroom occupies the end room that was formerly part of the mill, and this is reflected in the rubble stone finish of the walls and high ceiling, and a tiny window at nearly floor level. Many of the windows in the house have simple sheeted surrounds set deep in the stone walls. Externally, the front garden has been planted out with traditional cottage garden flowers and the old mill walls remain standing alongside the stream, while the everyday entrance to the cottage is from a small lean-to porch, and the splendid old trees around the cottage continue to define the sense of place.

Two small buildings associated with the cottage remain derelict but have been "mothballed" pending a possible future restoration scheme for them too.

 

Now, some local history...

A local history of the "Roads, Paths, Padds and Bye-ways in Ballywarren" by Francis Chambers provides some information on the Tobermoney mill, although to anyone not altogether familiar with the names of local families and townlands it makes for confusing reading.

Two farmers, Nevin and Hunter, for instance, had a dispute about their lands about 1769, "Which caused a WALL OF SEPARATION to be built between them, down to the river which enclosed more than three quarters of the, now, street to Nevin leaving scarcely so much on Hunter's side as would allow a car to pass at the front of their houses. In the wall thus built there was a SLAPP at each end, to pass hither and thither to the bogs, left so as it could be easily thrown down and built up as occasion might require, which slapp was immediately built up afterwards to prevent trespass."

More specifically, "The wiseacres of that time chose proper places to have water-mills erected and tracing the stream to Thobber-Meneeh (now Tobermoney) to do away with Quern-grinding. Directed one for the use of them to whom the Tin Towns was given for their service and convenience. She was of very small dimensions. One of the stones which I saw was no larger than a common grinding stone. She then stood east of Tobermoney in that field still called the "Old Mill Park" and kilns attached to her, one in Mrs. Martyn's field and one in Joseph Martyn's field...

"The Mill was built on a very small scale and grinding a hogshead (Hoggen-Stagshead) in the day, was thought great work! The stones of which I have seen the remains of one, was scarce one half the ordinary size and very light. There was not a sufficient fall in the Mill Farm for the tailwater therefore it was cut, by permission, in Tobermoney (see the small garden like patches) and, the "Ditch on the well of the 'Mill Burn' Stream"... is the meaning of "Tobermoney".

Farmers in those days had to face worse things than the declining price of pigs. For instance, "At this time there was a large species of cat harbouring in Joseph Martyn's 'hanging-brink' commonly called the Wild Cat Shugh, in which cats of uncommon size bred, and no dog dare face them, many of them had a horn on the end of their tail, with which was inflicted desperate wounds, till the neighbours assembled, the field being overrun with fire and when the dogs seemed to attack them in front, the men behind with clubs destroyed altogether that species of cat." Now what would the World Wildlife Fund have made of an animal like that?

 

 

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