Flour Mills — Lacken (gowran By. Kilkenny Rural Ed)

On the N bank of the River Nore, between the river and the Dublin Road, on the outskirts of Kilkenny City. Bradley (2000, 17) cites a medieval reference to a mill at this location in 1307. A watermill is indicated here on the Down Survey (1655-6) parish map of ‘The Parrish of St. Johns in the Liberties of Kilkenny’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin). The accompanying terrier of the parish map mentions, ‘in Sherlockeland is a Mill in repaire’, this property is listed as being Corporation Land in 1640 (ibid.). Doyle (1985, 152) suggests that, ‘Lacken mill may have been once owned by the Sherlock family, as it was part of an area formerly called Sherlock’s land. In 1425 the Earl of Ormond granted two mills to Walter Sherlock’. In the Civil Survey (1654-6) the mills, located, ‘Lying within half a mile from ye Citty Southward upon ye river Neor’, are described as, ‘Lackings Mills being 3 in number und[e]r one ruffe [roof], whereof there are 2 Corne Mills & 1 Tuck Mill ye walls stone and ye ruffe [roof] Thatch: 1 Corne loft’ and the ‘Ten[an]ts when ye Towne was Taken’ is given as Tho[mas] Lein [Lea, Ley or Leigh] (Simington 1942, vol. 6, 549). According to Doyle (1985, 152), ‘the medieval origins of this mill are all too visible’. He describes how the mill was modernized in the 19th century by the Sullivan family who built a brick façade onto, ‘what looks like a fifteenth or sixteenth century structure’ (ibid.). A wall in the mill has ‘an arch of the period’ and an armorial plaque, bearing part of an Archer coat of arms, was discovered in this wall, with ‘an incised carving of a man in sixteenth century costume’ (ibid.). Doyle mentions another Archer coat of arms at the former Archersgrove mills (KK019-050----) c. 1.2km to the SE (ibid. 153). Adjacent to the mill building, ‘there is a silted-up mill stream, besides the one that turned the twin mill wheels’ (ibid. 152). The mills have been disused since 1946 and are currently roofless (Bradley 2000, 17). See attached extract from the Down Survey (1655-6) parish map of ‘The Parrish of St. Johns in the Liberties of Kilkenny’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 5 October