Funding secured for walkway at Newmills Corn and Flax Mill

A new walkway will be developed at Newmills Corn and Flax Mill.

The walkway will be installed along the R250 an Newmills and Councillor Donal 'Mandy' Kelly believes that it will enhance the potential at the popular amenity.

Councillor Kelly confirmed that €25,000 of funding has been secured through the Minor Tourism Related Work grant scheme.

“This is something I have been pushing hard for since I took my seat on Donegal County Council,” Councillor Kelly told Donegal Live.

“This is a good news story and a step in the right direction to hopefully future proofing a walkway right the way into Conwal Graveyard in the future, which I have been lobbying hard for.
“Although this first phase will only see a section done at Newmills, it's a step in the right direction.

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“This will implement a safer walkway for visitors and tourists from the car park at the Mill to Newmills Bridge and will also add to the huge potential Newmills Corn and Flax Mill has to offer.”

Newmills Corn and Flax Mill reopened on June 1 having been closed for the duration of 2022.

The heritage site offers a first-hand look at the technology that powered the Industrial Revolution.

The site is open to the public Tuesday-Sunday until September 30 and it has welcomed around 3,000 visitors per annum.

Visitors can see one of the largest working waterwheels in the country.

The oldest surviving building at Newmills is 400 years old and there have been mills at Newmills since the early nineteenth century.

In Victorian times a flax mill lay at the core of the complex, providing crucial supplies to the linen industry, the backbone of Ulster’s economy at the time. A corn mill ground barley, oats and imported maize.

Newmills steadily expanded to include a public house, a scutcher’s cottage and a forge. By the early 1900s Newmills was also exporting food – the earliest supplies of butter, bacon and eggs for Sir Thomas Lipton’s nascent grocery empire in Glasgow came from there.