A tidal mill works by impounding seawater at high tide behind a dam or sluice, then releasing it through a millrace, the channel that carries water to the wheel, as the tide falls and the head of water builds. The mechanics are simple enough, but the siting demands precision: the miller's working day was dictated entirely by the rhythm of the tides rather than any human schedule.

The earliest documentary evidence for a mill here comes from John Rocque's map of County Dublin, surveyed in 1756, which marks a tidal mill at this location. By the time the Ordnance Survey produced its six-inch map in 1837, the site was recorded as Baltray Corn Mill, suggesting it had continued in some form of productive use across the intervening decades. The 1937 OS six-inch revision adds a precise and telling detail: it marks the highest point to which medium tides flow along the millrace east of Kilcrea House, which would have defined the practical upper limit of the mill's operation. Flanagan, writing in 1984, noted that the northern side of the millrace retains its stone walling, though there was some collapse of stone at the point where the tidal limit was recorded. This combination of cartographic persistence and surviving masonry gives the site a legibility that many comparable industrial remains have long since lost.

The site has seen considerable intervention in more recent times. Satellite and aerial imagery, as assessed in 2013, shows extensive dredging and what appears to be drainage insertion along the millrace, which complicates any reading of the original fabric. The stone walling on the north side of the race remains the most tangible element of what survives. The area east of Kilcrea House is the place to look, following the line of the millrace and attending to the boundary between worked stone and accumulated silting. The 1756 Rocque map, available through various digital archives, is worth consulting before a visit simply to orient yourself to what was once intended to be here.