Ormonde Woollen Mills

Woollen Mill complex, pre-1758, incorporating fabric of earlier corn and tuck mill complex, pre-1654/5, including:(i) Detached three-bay two-storey range with half-attic. Reroofed, c.1950. Decommissioned, 1969. Now disused and derelict. Pitched roof with replacement corrugated asbestos, c.1950, concrete ridge tiles, and no rainwater goods. Random rubble stone walls with dressed limestone quoins to corners, and sections of red brick irregular bond construction to upper floors. Square-headed window openings with fittings not visible. Square-headed door openings (including loading door to top floor side (east) elevation) with lintels, and fittings now missing. Set back from road on bank of River Nore with overgrown grounds to site.

A middle-size range surviving as one of a number of buildings on site (remainder on site not included in survey due to restricted access for documentation) forming an extensive complex representing an important element of the industrial legacy of Kilkenny having associations with the Ormonde family of nearby Kilkenny Castle (12002066/KK-4766-14-66). Having origins in a mill established in the early thirteenth-century the complex operating until the mid twentieth century represented one of the longest continually-functioning industrial centres in the locality. Although each range now stands in various states of repair much of the composition of the group survives intact together with some of the early fabric while the derelict condition produces an appealing landmark of some Romantic quality on the bank of the River Nore.