Site no OFIAR-042-008 Mill Park - Offaly County Council

At the entrance of the premises is the partial shell of a two-bay, single-storey rubblestone building.Waterworks, plant and machineryThe overgrown headrace is still visible above the mill but pond immediately behindthe mill has been infilled. The headrace entered the mill between the two rear returnsvia two shallow segmental arches, one to each former wheel. One pit is 1.8m (6ft)wide and the other is 1.0m (3ft 3in) wide. The wheels probably had a breastshot feed.The tailraces emerge from the front wall of the mill through two segmental arches. Anopen channel, piped under the road, returns the water to the river. No machinerysurvives.InterestEvaluationArchitectural; Historical; SettingThis prominent roadside mill is typical of medium-sized late 18th/early 19th flourmills. This one has added interest in that it milled both wheat and oats using twoseparate internal waterwheels. Although only a ruinous shell, its scale and situationmakes it of regional industrial heritage significance. It merits its inclusion as aProtected Structure in the Co Offaly Development Plan 2009-15.RatingRegionalProtection Offaly RPS 61-14 Action None (in RPS)Associated withOther dbase NIAH 14942006 (R)ReferencesMacMahon, N. In the Shadow of the Fairy Hill: a History of Shinrone andBallingarry from Pre-Christian Times to the Early 1900s (Shinrone:Kilcommon Press, 1998).Valuation Mill Book, 1840s. Reproduced by Hogg, W. The Millers and Millsof Ireland c.1850 (Dublin, 2000).Page(s) 89-90Page(s) 76OFIAR-042-030_01 FWH 01/08/2003 General view of north-east (front) elevation.