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BELMONT

CO. OFFALY · IE

Belmont
An Lios Dearg, Co. Offaly

STOP 06 / 06

An Lios Dearg · Co. Offaly

A mill village on the Brosna where the Grand Canal steps down through a rare double lock. Not bog country - water country.

Belmont is a water village pretending to be a bog village. The Irish name, An Lios Dearg - the red ring-fort - is older than any of the English names that came after it, and older than the mill that made the place. It sits about five kilometres west of Ferbane in west Offaly, north of the Grand Canal, with the River Brosna running just south of it on its way to the Shannon. Population was two hundred at the 2016 census, with a shop, a pub and a scatter of small businesses. That is the whole of it.

What makes Belmont is the mill. Belmont Mills was built in 1769 by a millwright called John Clifford for the Holmes and L'Estrange families, and the inscription stone still says so. The Perry family bought it in 1859 and ran it as a flour and oat mill - Robert Perry Limited - until late in the twentieth century. The main building is a four-bay, five-storey block with a timber hoist bay on the front, the kind of honest industrial architecture the midlands does well. It is listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage and parts of it have gone to disrepair, but the mill now works again as an artists' studio. Belmont House, the estate up the road, is early nineteenth century and is run today as a stud farm.

The other thing that explains Belmont is the canal. The Grand Canal's western line ran from Dublin out to the Shannon along the Brosna, and at Belmont it steps down through a double lock - Lock 33 - one of the very few staircase locks on the whole network. There is a bridge across the lower chamber, which sounds like a small detail until you are trying to get a rope from a boat in the chamber to a bollard on the bank with the bridge in the way. The engineers of the 1790s argued about it on paper before they built it.

Do not come to Belmont for things to do. Come because it is a clean, small example of how the midlands actually worked - a mill on a river, a lock on a canal, an estate on a hill, a shop and a pub at the crossroads, and the Brosna carrying it all down to the Shannon. Ferbane is five minutes away if you need more than that.

Population

~200 (2016)

Founded

Belmont Mills built 1769

Coords

53.2550° N, 7.8936° W

01 / 06

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The mill

A four-bay, five-storey corn and oat mill, built 1769.

Belmont Mills was raised by a millwright named John Clifford for the Holmes and L'Estrange families, bought by the Perrys in 1859, and milled flour and oats as Robert Perry Limited until the late twentieth century. The big mill building is now a working artists' studio.

Stories & lore → 02 The canal

Grand Canal Lock 33 - one of the rare double locks.

The canal's Brosna line steps down to the Shannon here through a double-chambered lock, unusual on the network. A bridge crosses the lower chamber, which made working a boat through it a genuine puzzle for the bargemen.

Stories & lore → 03 The bridge

A mid-18th-century bridge over the River Brosna.

Belmont Bridge carries the road over the Brosna just south of the village. The river, the canal and the mill race are the three waters that explain why anyone built here at all.

Walks & outings →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

John Clifford, millwright, 1769

Belmont Mills

The mill was built in 1769 - the inscription names John Clifford as the millwright and the Holmes and L'Estrange families as the men who paid for it. It ground corn and oats on the power of the Brosna and the mill race. In 1859 the Perry family bought the complex, and as Robert Perry Limited they milled flour and oats here until the late twentieth century, through fires and rebuilds and the long decline of small Irish milling. The surviving mill is a four-bay, five-storey block, roughcast over rubble, with a projecting timber hoist bay, a corn store and a screen house to the rear. It is in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage with a regional rating. Some of it is in poor repair, but the building has found a second life as an artists' studio, which is a kinder fate than most midlands mills get.

Grand Canal Lock 33

The double lock

When the Grand Canal pushed west from Dublin along the Brosna toward the Shannon, the ground at Belmont needed a steeper drop than a single lock could give, so the engineers built a double lock - two chambers in a staircase - which is a rare thing on the Irish network. The canal's engineer Jessop signed off on it in the 1790s with a note that he saw no objection to the double lock at Belmont, believing there would be plenty of water. The complication is a road bridge built across the lower chamber: it makes it awkward to pass a rope to a bollard on the bank, so working a boat through Belmont was always a slower, more careful business than an ordinary lock. The canal still carries pleasure boats through it today.

The red ring-fort, and the names that came after

An Lios Dearg

The oldest name for the place is An Lios Dearg, the red ring-fort - a lios is an early ringfort, and the colour suggests the soil or the stone of it. The English name arrived later. The estate became Bellmount, then Belmont, the genteel spelling that landlords liked, and the older name slid into the background. It is a small, common story in the Irish midlands: a Gaelic place-name describing a fort in a field, written over by an estate name describing a view. The ring-fort that gave Belmont its first name is the kind of thing you walk past without seeing.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

The canal towpath at Lock 33 Walk the Grand Canal towpath from the double lock at Belmont. Flat, grassy, beside still water, with the lock and its bridge as the set piece. East takes you toward Pollagh and Tullamore, west toward the Shannon. Quiet underfoot and quiet overhead - this is not a busy stretch.

2-4 km returndistance

1 hourtime

Belmont Bridge and the Brosna Down to the mid-18th-century bridge over the River Brosna just south of the village, with the mill and the mill race nearby. A short walk that joins the three waters - river, race and canal - that built the place. Verges can be soft after rain.

1-2 kmdistance

30-45 mintime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The Brosna runs high and clear, the towpath dries out, and the canal wakes up before the boats arrive. The best light on the mill.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Pleasure boats work the canal and the lock, so there is a little life on the water. Long evenings for the towpath. Still very quiet by any normal measure.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The boats thin out, the trees along the canal turn, and the place settles back into itself. A good month for the walks.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and a wet Brosna. The towpath gets muddy and the verges soft. The shop and pub keep going. Bring boots or stay in the car.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a visitor attraction at the mill

Belmont Mills is a working artists' studio and a listed building, not a tourist site with a car park and a tearoom. Look at it from the road and the towpath. Do not expect a tour.

Treating Belmont as a stop with services

There is a shop and a pub, and that is genuinely the lot. No restaurants, no hotel, no visitor centre. Ferbane, five kilometres east, is where you go for more.

The bog-country idea

Belmont is not a crossroads in the open bog. It is a mill-and-canal village on the River Brosna, and the water - not the turf - is the point. Come for the lock, the mill and the river.

Getting there.

By car

Belmont is about 5 km west of Ferbane and roughly 25 km south of Athlone, reached on the regional roads off the R357 Ferbane-Shannonbridge corridor. Tullamore is about 40 minutes east. A car is the practical way in.

By bus

No useful scheduled bus serves Belmont directly. Local Link Laois Offaly runs rural routes through the wider area, but check timetables; nearest fuller service is at Ferbane or Tullamore.

By train

Nearest station is Athlone (about 25 km north) on the Dublin-Galway line. From there it is car or taxi.

By air

Dublin Airport (DUB) is roughly 1h 45m by car. Shannon (SNN) is about 1h 15m south-west.