ballycopeland windmill

Now around two centuries old, it was worked as a mill by the McGilton family until 1915. After that, it lay disused for many years, but after much painstaking repair and reconstruction by what is now the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland, the mill ground its corn again in 1978. It can, therefore, work, but is not normally operational during the visiting hours, which are indicated on a notice-board outside.

The mill is only one of around 100 windmills known to have been worked in the grain-rich county of Down. It is a tall, tapering tower of stone, plastered and whitewashed, and with its four sails being turnable by a fan-tail on the revolving cap, so that the sails could always face into the wind. As the machinery is now in working order again, the milling process can be best followed by climbing to the top floor and working downwards to the ground floor. Between the road and the mill is the miller's house and the kiln-house, where the grain was dried before being ground.