Lough Island Reavy

in Places by Simon — September 7, 2010 at 1:35 pm | 0 comments

The manufacture of linen is a long, complicated and labour intensive business and involves the use of plenty of water, especially for the bleaching of the woven cloth.  The purity of water of the River Bann  in the Upper Bann Valley (before it picked up a brown peaty colour around Portadown) was excellent for the purposes of bleaching linen, but the development of the linen industry in the Upper Bann Valley in the 19th century eventually faced the problem of needing more water than was available at certain times of the year. The function of the water in the Upper Bann Valley was two-fold. Firstly, water was required for the actual bleaching of the linen, but the bleacher needed power to be turned and this was done by the use of mill races and water wheels. If the water levels in the river dropped in the drier summer months when the bleaching of linen was carried out then the bleachers wouldn’t work. An engineer was commissioned to write a report on how to overcome this problem and he concluded that building a dam to create a reservoir of water would be cheaper, by the amount of £7000 a year, than building steam powered mills to run the bleachers. The plan was to build a dam at Lough Island Reavy, the Deer’s Meadow (now Spelga Dam and Reservoir) and Corbett Lough. Lough Island Reavy took two years to construct and was completed in 1839.  It was capable of holding enough water to supply the whole of the Upper Bann linen industry over the summer months.

Tags: County Down Mournes