What is unusual is the particular accumulation of accidents and adaptations that have left this building in its present state: burnt in 1982 and subsequently reduced in height, hemmed in on nearly every side by low modern construction, its waterwheel pit partially filled in, and yet still functioning, now producing cattle feed rather than flour. It is a building that has survived not by being preserved but by being continuously repurposed.

The mill sits south of the Dirty River, a name that appears on older maps of the area without apparent embarrassment. The structure itself is a rectangular, six-bay building clad in weatherslating, a common West Cork technique in which overlapping slates are fixed vertically to external walls as protection against driving rain, giving older buildings a distinctive scaled appearance. A low stone addition projects from the north-east end. The most quietly remarkable detail is the engine house to the north, which contains a National Gas and Oil Engine, a type of internal combustion engine that was introduced to Irish mills in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a supplement or replacement for water power. This particular engine was reportedly in use until recently, a reminder that industrial machinery of that vintage was often kept running simply because it still worked.

The partially infilled wheel pit along the north-west wall, around two and a half metres wide, is the most visible trace of the mill's earlier water-powered operation. The surrounding modern development means the building reads less as a heritage structure than as a working remnant absorbed into an ordinary commercial landscape, which in some ways makes it more interesting than a carefully restored showpiece.