Our Story

Jennymount was originally established as a flax spinning mill, with its earliest buildings dating back to 1856. The Beautiful Lanyon Building located at the entrance to the Business Park was designed by John Lanyon in 1891, with an extra floor being added in 1909. After closing as a working mill in 1965, Jennymount remained largely unoccupied until the 1990s when Stanvale Limited began renovating and upgrading the buildings to create the commercial Business Park as it is today.

In the late nineteenth century, Belfast was enjoying a period of industrial boom!  Shipbuilding and linen production were at their peak and the city prospered, surpassing Dublin in size and population.

Jennymount was among several busy mills in the North Belfast area including the York Street Mill, the Milewater Mill, Ewart’s Crumlin Road Mill, all built by Ulster’s linen barons and whose fine produce was shipped to markets all over the world.  The demand for linen was boosted considerably by the first world war (1914-1918) and production levels peaked in 1919.

By the time of the US Depression in 1929, output had started to fall and demand had slowed, as cotton surpassed linen as a more economical option.

By the 1950’s, the picture was dismal, with new synthetic fibres overtaking linen in fashion and household markets.  Ewarts, the then owners of Jennymount Mill made all of its workers redundant between 1956 and 1960 and the mill closed its doors finally in 1965.

While Jennymount Estate has never completely fallen into a state of irreparable Dereliction, as other mills have, in the years between 1960 and 1990, it fell far from its glory days as a stunning architectural landmark and flourishing hub of industry.  Some buildings lay unoccupied and deteriorated to dangerous levels, others served various uses as showrooms, offices, workshops and warehouses.  It was not until the early 1990’s and the purchase of Jennymount from Ewart PLC by Stanvale Limited, that signs of hope for the regeneration of Jennymount appeared.