2010:608 - CLONMEL: Raheen Mill, Burgagery-Lands West/Oldbridge, Tipperary

An excavation was carried out at Raheen Mill, Clonmel, between December 2009 and February 2010 in advance of the construction of a flood defence wall on the southern side of the River Suir.

A desktop study recorded that there was a mill located on the site since at least 1821 (Killaly’s and Leahy’s maps, 1821 and 1831 respectively). According to the second-edition OS map, dated 1904, the mill was later converted into use as a smithy and continued to function as such until the 1950s. After this date the building fell into ruin, the upper floors and interior were demolished and the gable walls were reduced to the height of the adjacent riverbank walls. Until recently portions of the north, east and west walls survived aboveground. These enclosed a landscaped space with a section of the east wall incorporated into an entrance feature leading into Denis Burke Park.

The full-scale excavation of the site followed a programme of testing that recorded deposits and structural remains associated with both the earlier mill building and the later smithy. During the test phase three trenches were machine excavated exposing an intact paved surface below a layer of modern infill. This surface layer was made up of modern deposits including garden soil, aggregates and builders’ rubble related to the demolition of the structure. The rubble deposit was over 2.6m deep along the northern mill wall and within the interior was 0.7m in depth and overlay an in situ paved slab stone floor. Elsewhere to the south, testing along the footpath exposed a number of modern services including a 725mm sewer main that was installed at a depth of 3m and veered north-north-west, truncating the mill’s entire southern range.

The excavated area extended 13m east–west by 9.5m from the northern riverside wall to the roadside kerb of the footpath. Internally the mill measured 5.6m east–west by in excess of 10m to the south. Within this area the excavation reduced the ground by approximately 1.8–2m exposing the underlying natural silt and bedrock.

During the removal of the overburden, which contained frequent amounts of heavily corroded iron debris and other modern finds, a millstone and stone quenching trough were discovered. Both these finds define the building’s use over a period of 200 years. Also re-exposed was the stone pavement found during testing. This floor was cut north–south through the centre by a plastic duct that ran from the road to the south and emptied out into the river via a hole knocked through the northern mill wall. The service trench for this pipe varied in width from 0.9m to 1.4m and was dug to a depth of approximately 1.5m. The installation of this service, possibly in the early 1980s, damaged much of the interior, including both the wheelhouse wall and wheel pit wall to the north as well as disturbing pre-existing layers.

The stone pavement, interpreted as the smithy floor, would originally have covered the southern portion of the mill building, with the northern half probably used for storage. The floor slabs were set in a rough mortar bed that overlay a charcoal-enriched layer. A number of metal objects were found at this level as well as a rectangular stone feature set against the eastern wall. Below this surface was a thick layer of alluvial sand, probably taken from the riverbank and used to raise the internal levels of the building when the mill was reconverted to be used as a forge. The mill floor, recorded 0.75m below the smithy floor, was divided into two working platforms. To the south was the millstone floor where the grain was ground and stored; this level dropped down to a rectangular chamber known as the wheel pit, so-called for the trundle wheel that was connected via the wheel shaft (a rotating axel) to the waterwheel. The waterwheel was separated from the wheel pit by a stone wall that survived in very poor condition. The wheelhouse was evident by blocked-up arches in the eastern and western gables. These arches allowed water to flow in from the weir via the headrace to power what was probably an undershot vertically set waterwheel before discharging into the river. The waterwheel powered the trundle wheel in the wheel pit, which in turn rotated a wallower that turned the grinding stones via a stone nut. Also found in the wheel pit was a subrectangular stone feature set into a retaining wall that separated both floor levels. This feature had a gradual batter along its elevation and was interpreted as the base of a meal sieve through which the ground grain was bagged.

Two significant finds were retrieved from the mill floor, a George III halfpenny probably dating to the 1770s and a wine-glass stem with an internal air twist dating to the same period. This evidence corroborates previous research that describes Raheen Mill as an 18th-century cornmill that, according to Griffith’s Valuation, was leased to a Mr William Jones of Clonmel Corporation in 1850.

To the east of the mill wall excavation took the form of a stepped-in trench that exposed the wall foundations at a depth of 2m below the surface level, at which stage the site began to flood. To the west a number of abutting walls were found. These walls do not appear on the first- or second-edition maps and probably date to the early 20th century. As with the structural remains to the south, these walls were removed during the installation of the large water main.
Following the excavation of the mill and the recording of the elevations, the mill walls were partially demolished and will be removed under archaeological supervision in the near future.

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