Pub history

The Spinning Mill

The linen trade transformed Ballymena from a small hamlet into a market town. It was the cultivation of flax and the need for a suitable place in which to bleach the linen webs, woven by cottagers, which began Ballymena’s transformation from a few homes around the ford of the River Braid. An important stimulus to the trade was the introduction of the ‘flying shuttle’. This enabled yard-wide cloths to be woven, later to be adopted throughout Ulster.