Wellbrook Beetling Mill 2024
Co. Tyrone
Historic Linen Village Museum at Sion Stables 2025
The village is of international significance. The museum is housed within the period horse stalls which were fabricated in the late 19th century by Musgraves of Belfast. The exhibitions bring alive the stories of the mill-owners, the mill-workers and the production of Irish Linen. Take time to marvel at the sample of the first flax spun in the mill on 15th November 1835 or explore the extensive collection of linen including the famous William & Mary tablecloth. Learn about lesser known uses of linen such as its use in aeroplane wings during WW1.
Contacts
Operator: Sion Mills Buildings Preservation Trust
Address: 120a Melmount Road Sion Stables, Sion Mills, Nr Strabane Co. Tyrone BT82 9ET
- Telephone: 028 8165 9772
- Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
- Website: View website
Open Days & Times
Tue-Sat 1100-1700. Sun from 1200. Visit website or facebook for more details.
Facilities
- Parking
- Refreshments
- Souvenir Shop
- Part disabled access
Herdman's Flax-Spinning Mill was built in 1835 by the brothers James, John & George Herdman from Belfast. Sion Mills was chosen as a rural area of high employment and with enormous waterpower. The Herdmans’ vision was to create a moral, God-fearing, temperate, educated, non-sectarian community around a flax-spinning business in the northwest of Ireland which was a prolific flax-growing area. They built a model village, a school, churches, recreational and sporting facilities and succeeding in creating a community where everyone, of both religious traditions, has lived, gone to school and worked together happily over the past 170 years and five generations of the Herdman family.
Village life plays a key role in the exhibition. Sion Mills has a proud sporting heritage with cricket, bowls, football and tennis all being a part of daily life. The Holme field famously saw Ireland beat the West Indies in 1969 and holds the world record for the longest match ball hit when a cricket ball landed in a trains goods wagon and was transported to Derry…
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