Lisburn: Permission sought to demolish most of listed Hilden Mill

Hilden Mill is a 24-acre former factory site on the edge of Lisburn city, overlooking the River Lagan.

The site had been used as a linen bleaching green until it was taken over by the industrialist William Barbour in 1823.

Barbour’s father had emigrated from Scotland about 40 years earlier and set up a linen thread business at a nearby site in Lisburn.

William Barbour built a water-powered mill at Hilden, setting the foundations for a firm that would become one of the largest linen thread manufacturers in the world.

The Barbours employed many thousands of people at Hilden over the decades, and they built a model village for their workforce.

This included hundreds of homes, two schools, a community hall, a village sports ground, and a children’s playground.

In the 1990s, Hilden Mill amalgamated with the international firm Coats Ltd and became known as the Coats Barbour factory, producing specialist thread for the automotive and upholstery industries.

But by 2006, its market had declined, and the thread factory site closed with the loss of 85 jobs.