Belmont Mill brought back to life with fine restoration

A Ballinasloe man and his wife have painstakingly brought an historical West Offaly mill back to life and now hope to turn the facility into a major Midlands tourist attraction, as well as a haven for arts and craftspeople from around the country. Tom Dolan, originally from Creagh, Ballinasloe, in Roscommon, and his wife Sandy have restored the fabulous old sprawling Belmont Mill site on the banks of the Brosna river from the brink of dereliction, recently mounting an exhibition charting the history of the building for tourists and locals alike to visit and learn about the site"s interesting past. It"s clear chatting to the affable couple they have a thirst for challenging restoration projects but when they bought the building back in 1997 it was their most ambitious undertaking to date. While living in London, Tom working as an accountant for The Arts Council and Pakistan-born Sandy, a teacher, restored a number of houses. 'The first house we renovated, a cottage when we walked through the door we went through the floor and we thought yeah this is great,' Tom recalled fondly. After a number of other projects and a six-month trip to India, Pakistan and Nepal the pair grasped the opportunity to return to Ireland purchasing a farm near Newtownmountkennedy in Wicklow, where they set up a free-range and organic egg business. Starting with a small number of hens, the enterprising couple quickly developed a very successful company supplying Superquinn and other major shops around the country. By the 1990s they were actually the biggest egg business in Ireland employing 10 people with 12 other local farmers working on contract for them. But as Tom explained they were working very long hours seven-days-a-week and the couple decided a change was needed selling the business in 1997. 'It was profitable but it wasn"t where we wanted to go long term,' he said. It begs the question though, what attracted the pair to the run down Perry"s Mill in the village of Belmont? 'I love old buildings,' he explained, adding that he was also enthralled by the fact it had such a complete site. 'Basically it hasn"t changed in more than 100 years. As you can see from the inside of the oatmill, it has the full complement of machinery put in there in the 1880s,' the Ballinasloe native and past graduate of AIT enthused. 'There is a real timelessness about mills, maybe rightly or wrongly there"s an idyll. It"s almost like the hobbits and everything stays the same in the shire, that sort of thing. To me it seemed like there was limitless potential. My first hope was to get the water coming through the building again.' And, as you wander through whilst marvelling at this building brought back to life and listen to the millwheel turning with the gushing Brosna waters, most definitely that decision has to be applauded. However, looking at the before-and-after photos on display in the 4.5 mill site, which actually dates back to 1769 and encompassed several mills at one time, the job certainly must have been an arduous one. Early photos show a sad looking building with a roof falling in and no windows and rubble around the site. 'There was a lot of cleaning up,' Sandy laughed of the massive task of bringing the building back to life which the couple undertook over time with the rest completed mainly in 2006 and 2007 with the aid of a grant from Offaly Leader. 'You could stand in the ground floor and look up at the sky,' Tom chimed in, chuckling at the thought. Purchased by the Quaker family the Perrys in 1866, who also owned a similar mill at the time in Ballinagore, Kilbeggan, the Perrys developed the Belmont facility into one of Ireland"s most productive inland oat and flour mills over the next few decades, employing 140 people in the early years. Many in the Midlands may remember their product "Groato" as a staple porridge-style product of households in the region. 'Grain that might originate from Mantoba in Canada would be shipped to Southhampton and then on to Dublin before it was transported to the canal and right down to Belmont. That was then milled and supplied all of the Midlands,' Tom outlined. Luckily, though for the couple who now have a beautiful exhibition showing the history and the workings of the mill to generations who know nothing about the time, their showcase is all the more important because all the original machinery is still on the site, as is much of the documentation, things like wage books and photos which actually date back over a century. 'They (Perrys) had actually kept all documents from the 1850s and stored them in chchronological order' until the closure in 1972. 'We were extraordinarily lucky, you see a lot of archival material in libraries but the archival material from here is in the mill. ' Mr Dolan enthused, adding the family were very innovative in many respects. Looking ahead to the future it"s hoped the building can now become a tourist venture to add to growing number of attractions in the region and, combined with that Tom and Sandy hope to expand their space available for art and crafts people to come and work there to add to the area"s burgeoning reputation. 'We converted the coach house and grain store in to seven studio spaces and two apartments for artists. We just felt there was a lovely atmosphere about the place and we have been operating in the Artist Programme sponsored by the Arts Council for the last five years. We would love other craft and creative workers to come and work here,' Tom urged adding that a café and a retail space and possibly further exhibitions are also ideas being explored for the facility in the years to come. Belmont Mill Watermill and Studios is open to the public Tuesday to Saturdays 1.30pm - 5.30pm. For further information call 086 6078925 or 09064 57598 or check www.belmontmill.com