Celbridge Mills

Detached sixteen-bay (four-bay deep) four-storey over basement mill with attic, built 1805, on a rectangular plan. Closed, 1982. Renovated, 1985, to accommodate alternative use. Pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, stepped coping to gables, and cast-iron rainwater goods on red brick header bond eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Part repointed coursed rubble limestone walls with cut- or hammered limestone flush quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings with shallow sills, and red brick voussoirs framing casement windows. Set in shared grounds.

A mill erected by the Yorkshire-born Laurence Atkinson (----) representing an important component of the industrial heritage of Celbridge with the architectural value of the composition, 'a very large range of building...comprising all the requisite machinery for woollen manufacture in its various branches [and] put in motion by a water wheel of 200-horse power' (Lewis 1837 I, 319-20), confirmed by such attributes as the elongated rectilinear plan form; the uniform proportions of the openings on each floor; and the high pitched roof. NOTE: The mill was adapted to a number of processes over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: producing flax and flour (1840-79) under the ownership of Giles Shaw (----); briefly producing peat-based paper (1903-6) under the ownership of the American-born William Calendar (----); briefly producing hand-woven cloth (1934-7) under the ownership of Thomas Copperton (----) of the Leinster Hand Weaving Company (established 1834); producing coats and dresses (1939-53) under the ownership of Barney Reynolds (----); and, finally, producing carpets (1956-82) under the ownership of Navan Carpets (established 1938).