Stisted Mill

Details

TL 7924 STISTED KING'S LANE (west side)

7/265 Stisted Mill 21.12.67

GV II

Water mill, now a house. C18, extended in C19, converted 1977. Timber framed, weatherboarded, roofed with handmade red plain tiles. Rectangular plan facing SE, one storey and lofts on 2 floors. C19 single-storey extension to left, roofed with slate, and double garage beyond, with lean-to roof of corrugated iron. Ground floor, in main building, one window of 25 fixed lights, one C20 sash of 6 lights, 3 C20 casements; one window of 16 lights in left extension. One C20 casement below lucam, 2 more in gabled dormers. One small C20 light in gabled hoist, one C20 casement in gabled lucam on straight brackets; the sides of the brackets are weatherboarded. C20 door. One pair of vehicle doors in left extension, 2 pairs beyond. The main building has a gambrel roof enclosing 2 floors. The left extension has a roof of low pitch. 2 C20 stacks and one metal flue in rear pitch of main roof, not rising above ridge. The rear elevation has on the ground floor 3 windows of 25, 25 and 24 lights respectively, and 3 C20 casements; 3 casements of 9 lights in gabled dormers, and 2 C20 in-pitch roof lights. French window. Many of these windows are accurate replicas made in 1977 from existing originals of the C18 and C19. Transverse beams on grown knees secured by forelocks. Primary straight bracing in walls, fully jointed main frame. Internally there is evidence that the mill was extended to the right in the C18. The house occupies the right part of the main building, and the right extension. The left end has been partitioned off, containing all the machinery as described in 1976: 'Today the form of the mill suggests it is still the same building which was running a pair of fulling stocks as well as grinding corn in 1775. Its stone floor is so low that the pit wheel rises above its level, so that the wallower and spur wheel cannot be accommodated under this floor as in most water-mills. To overcome this the stones are overdriven, a style more usual in windmills and nowhere else found on these Essex rivers. From the spur wheel up on the stone floor the stone spindles (or quants as they are called in this drive) descend into the stone maces from above, their square shape agitating the shoe without needing a damsel. Under the stones, spindles are still required to raise and lower them on conventional bridge trees. There is a suggestion (as at Codham) that a crown wheel was once squeezed in on the stone floor as well, but the present one is on the floor above, working two lay shafts nicely engineered for various vanished machines. .... (The) wheel, whose wooden paddles were replaced by iron in 1920, turned the stones till the end of the Second World War and worked the sack hoist till 1960 during the mill's final years when an oil engine drove a hammer mill. Surprisingly, there is no by-valve. It is a long walk up the river to the sluice which had to be used instead' (item 7/266, q.v.). (H. Benham, Some Essex Water Mills, 1976, 59-60). 2 pairs of French stones, wooden upright shaft, iron great spur wheel and crown wheel. Breast-shot wheel with cast iron rims and hubs and wooden spokes, mounted on an iron wheelshaft which carries the iron pitwheel engaging the iron wallower. The C19 extension to the left formerly housed a steam engine and ancillary machinery, now missing except the overhead shafting. The chimney to the rear, shown in a photograph of c.1910, was demolished soon afterwards (F. Spalding Collection, Essex Record Office).

Listing NGR: TL7912924484

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

116282

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Benham, H, Some Essex Water Mills, (1976), 59-60

End of official list entry

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