Watermill at Low Mill

Summary

A remarkably complete example of a small, rural water-powered cornmill which was improved in the late eighteenth century and still retains its machinery. Possibly of medieval origins, it was rebuilt in 1785 and was restored to working order in 2010.

Reasons for Designation

Bilsdale Low Mill is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a rare and remarkably complete survival of a small, late-C18 improved watermill;

* for the very good survival of in-situ corn milling machinery in a layout considered to date to the 1785 rebuilding of the mill;

* it highlights the evolution of milling technology, from indications of the pre-1785 arrangement, to later modifications and repairs.

Historic interest:
* for the relatively extensive documentary references relating to the mill from the C16 onwards.

History

The watermill at Low Mill may have originally been established by Rievaulx Abbey, which had a grange (monastic farm) in Bilsdale. At the Dissolution in 1538, Willelme Eston is recorded as tenanting the monastery’s mill in Bilsdale, however this medieval mill might have been sited elsewhere: for instance, there are low earthworks suggestive of a mill site some 150m further downstream to the south within the field recorded as Mill Field in 1781. However, the current site was probably established by 1637 when the farm ‘Nether Mill Howse’ was described in a survey of the Helmsley estate for the 7th Earl of Rutland, the mill then tenanted by William Coulson: the Coulson family being millers at Low Mill from the late C16 until 1791. A survey in 1641 recorded the mill as being valued at less than 40s because it was out of repair, with an estimated £40 required to bring it back into use to generate an expected income of £10 per year. A survey dated 1781 included an estate plan showing the mill in its current location, labelled Low Mill. In 1785-1786 the mill was largely rebuilt and modernised for Charles Slingsby Duncombe’s Helmsley estate, including ‘the expense of a spur gear wheel and other articles which was unnecessary for a mill so situated’.

The current arrangement of machinery, although including some later repairs and modifications, is considered to date to the 1785 modernisation. The spur gear wheel powering a vertical shaft was state-of-the-art technology in the late C18 and allowed the transmission of power not just to two separate sets of millstones (thus allowing the grinding of differing grains), but also to several auxiliary drives for powering other machinery. This included the hoist and probably a simple oat roasting plate fitted to the fireplace, along with other machinery for dressing flour and processing grain. The large hurst pit, the sunken area of the ground floor that spans the full width of the mill building, indicates that the earlier mill before the 1785 rebuilding was probably powered via a lying shaft parallel to the waterwheel, a horizontal power-transmission shaft. Such an arrangement, developed in the early C18, could power multiple sets of stones via gearing but was more awkward to adapt for auxiliary drives.

Early C18 watermills were typically single storey. The two storey and attic form of the current building is consistent with the improved mills that were built in the late C18. As there is little evidence in the stonework that the building was heightened, the current building is considered to date to 1785; the earlier mill mainly evidenced by the broad hurst pit.

The mill continued in operation throughout the C19, with some components renewed in cast iron. The mill has two sets of millstones: One set are French burr stones used for flour milling, being marked ’JAS Savery Maker Stockton-on-Tees, 1849’; the second set are of millstone grit, likely to have been used principally for animal feed. In 1880 John Hauxwell quoted for a new iron waterwheel, but this was presumably deemed too expensive. Instead, the early-C18-style clasp-armed timber wheel set on a square section shaft was retained, the shrouds (continuous plates around the rims forming the sides to the wheel’s buckets) being replaced in cast iron marked ‘Butler Helmsley’ in around 1890. When surveyed in 1928 by Mitford Abraham it was described as being long out of use.

The mill was renovated in 1974-1981 and worked until a problem with the waterwheel occurred in 1989. It was renovated again in 2002-2010, including the like-for-like replacement of the waterwheel axle, returning the mill to being operational. Alongside renovation work, documentary research has also been carried out, identifying many of the millers at Low Mill, along with other historical details: see Harrison (2001) and Bowes et al (2020).

Details

Water-powered corn mill, possible medieval origins, but rebuilt 1785. C19 repairs, with further restorations to working order completed in 1981 and 2010.

MATERIALS: squared, roughly-tooled sandstone laid to relatively even courses. Some herringbone-tooled blocks likely to represent repairs. Replaced roof covering to the main building, with the wheelhouse roofed in pantiles.

PLAN: single-celled building with an attached lean-to wheelhouse to the east gable.

EXTERIOR: The building is of two storeys plus attic, simply built with no quoining. Openings are plain with rectangular monolithic lintels, fitted with simple timber joinery. Gables are coped without kneelers.

North: this has a domestic-scale boarded door to the right (west) and two three-light timber mullioned windows: one off-set to the west of centre on the ground floor (lighting the area of floor used for redressing millstones) and one lighting the hurst platform (the mezzanine floor occupied by the millstones) at the east end. Below is a slit window providing some light to the gearing within the hurst pit.

West gable: this is blind except for a single taking-in opening to the first-floor fitted with a boarded door, and a two-light mullioned window to the attic, both offset to the north. A short, square chimneystack rises from the ridge.

South: this is blind except for a single window lighting the hurst platform through which passes an iron transmission shaft to an iron belt-drive wheel installed in the 1970s (used then to power a saw).

East gable: attached is the low, lean-to wheelhouse, which has a low access door aligned with the axle. Just above its roofline there is a small opening through the wall of the mill (possibly for a former auxiliary driveshaft). There is a window to the attic above, but the mill gable is otherwise blind.

INTERIOR: lime plastered walls, stone-flagged ground floor except for a beaten earth circle used for re-dressing millstones. A simple fireplace is set to the centre of the west wall on the ground floor, this with monolithic jambs and lintel (cracked), and fitted with an iron peat hearth relocated from the farmhouse. The hurst pit and platform spans the width of the building at the east end. Access to the first-floor is from the hurst platform, which is reached from the ground floor via a ladder stair, with a further ladder stair between the first-floor and attic at the west end, this closed with a trapdoor. There are also trapdoors for the hoist on both upper floors. Floor structures and the principal roof timbers are all largely original. The roof structure has two A-frame trusses supporting double purlins and a ridge board, purlins being through-tenoned and pegged. Common rafters are modern replacements.

MACHINERY:
Wheelhouse lean-to: low breast-shot wheel fed from the north. Early-C18 style, clasp-arm timber wheel of 11-foot diameter (3.35m) set on a square-section timber shaft. Fitted (circa 1890) with cast-iron shroud plates marked ‘Butler Helmsley’. The shaft is an early C21 like-for-like replacement.

Hurst pit: pit wheel (bevel-gear on the waterwheel shaft), wallower (bevel-gear turning the main shaft), spur wheel (main shaft gear with timber teeth that drive the stone nuts, the gears that drive the mill stones) and tenterjack (the mechanism for setting the gap between the millstones) are all cast iron and likely to be C19 replacements (but retaining the 1785 arrangement). Some are marked Carters of Kirkby Moorside. The main drive shaft, which rises vertically from the hurst pit to the attic floor, is timber and of hexagonal section: it is probably the shaft that was installed in 1785.

Hurst platform: this supports two sets of mill stones, each set within a tun (timber housing) that retains all of the associated equipment including detachable hoppers. One set of stones are French burr stones that include a cast-iron ring around the eye marked ‘JAS Savery Maker Stockton-on-Tees, 1849’. The second set of stones are of millstone grit.

First floor: set just below the ceiling there is a timber crown wheel fitted to the main drive shaft, which powers two timber auxiliary drive shafts extending to the north and south; all of this considered to be late C18. The north shaft is fitted with a toothed wheel adjacent to the north wall. The south shaft has a C19 iron wheel for a belt drive adjacent to the south wall, connected via a belt to an iron auxiliary drive shaft set above the west edge of the hurst platform, just above the level of the first floor. This extends from above the ladder to the hurst platform and out of the south window. At each end there are iron wheels for further belt drives; the one above the steps to the hurst is believed to have been used to drive an oat roasting plate, the one outside the building was used in the 1970s to power a saw.

Attic floor: at the top of the main shaft is a set of cast-iron bevel gears powering a timber wheel fitted with a chain. The chain transfers power to a timber drive shaft that forms a powered sack hoist from the ground floor to the attic. The hoist is controlled by a simple balance-beam clutch mechanism that changes the tension of the drive chain.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

333070

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Harrison, J K, Eight Centuries of Milling in North East Yorkshire, (2001), 89-90, 231-232
Bowes, M, Gamble, J, Gamble, R, Low Mill in Bilsdale, (2020)

End of official list entry

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