The story of Sion Stables
Sion Mills was founded in 1835 when the Herdman brothers, James, John and George, converted an old flour mill on the River Mourne into a flax-spinning mill. They laid out a model village around it, with schools, churches and recreation, run on deliberately non-sectarian lines. At its height the mill employed up to around 1,500 people and earned a reputation as the Rolls Royce of the linen industry.
The stable block itself was built in 1884 to serve Sion House, the Herdman family home. It was designed by the English Arts and Crafts architect William Unsworth, brother-in-law of Emerson Tennant Herdman, who shaped several buildings across the village. The stables held the family's horses, and later a pit for the chauffeur to service their early motor cars. Inside, the horse stalls were fabricated by Musgraves of Belfast and survive today.
Herdmans Ltd kept spinning into the 21st century, but cheaper competition, much of it from China, broke the British and Irish linen trade. Production at Sion Mills ended in 2004 with the loss of around 600 jobs, closing nearly 170 years of milling.
The stable block was rescued by Hearth Historic Buildings Trust, which restored it in two phases between 2011 and 2014 with Heritage Lottery Fund support. It reopened as a museum, education centre, restaurant and offices, and is run by the Sion Mills Buildings Preservation Trust, formed in 1999 to conserve the mill and village.