The Mill Building

Summary

Water-powered corn mill. Early C19.

Reasons for Designation

Bradley's Mill, an early C19 water-powered corn mill, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: as a good example of a rural, water-powered, corn mill which retains a good proportion of historic fabric;
* Machinery: it retains a significant proportion of its mill machinery which illustrates the operation of a water-powered corn mill.

History

A water mill was first recorded on the site in a document of 1704 and is shown on Greenwood’s map of Kent in 1821. The current corn mill dates from the early C19 and appears in its present form on the 1834 Tithe map. In 1831 the business was acquired by the Taylor family who were still operating the mill in the 1930s. By the time the mill closed in the late 1960s it was the last operating water mill in West Kent and only one pair of millstones was in use. The mill was subsequently used as storage for an animal feed company with some light industrial use in the upper floor of the ancillary wing.

Details

Former water-powered cornmill, later used for storage and as carpentry and joinery workshops. Present building of early C19 date.

PLAN: located at the northern corner of the mill pond, the mill is L-shaped in plan comprising a three-storey range containing the mill machinery arranged north-east to south-west with a long two-storey ancillary range extending to the south-east. The south-west elevation of the ancillary range is of one storey due to the slope of the ground.

MATERIALS: the ground floor is of red brick with some grey headers while the upper storeys are timber-framed with weatherboard cladding and pitched slate roofs.

EXTERIOR: the front (north-west) elevation has three early C19 metal casement windows and a stable-type door on the ground floor. The first-floor has two early C19 metal casements and a centrally placed double hoist door with a timber hood with brackets. The south-western ground-floor wall of the mill range is of tooled sandstone ashlar blocks where it adjoins the leat containing the overshot waterwheel. There are three iron casements on this elevation, two at first floor level and one at the top of the gable. The north-east elevation has a large doorway with a modern garage door and metal casement on the ground floor, and metal casements on the first floor and in the gable.

The ancillary range has a mix of timber casements, uPVC replacements, C20 fixed glazing and two metal casements to the single-storey south-west elevation. Doors are mainly original but original hoist doors to the centre of the north-east elevation have been replaced with weatherboarding.

INTERIOR: the interior of the mill range consists of three floors. The ground floor has a stud partition at the south-west end enclosing the primary gearing, transmitting power from the waterwheel. The partition is framed by four oak posts, which support the millstones on the floor above, and has a number of timber inspection hatches. A doorway with concrete-block jambs at the south-east corner leads to a small space latterly used as an office/canteen. The first floor, reached by a timber stair in the south-west corner, contains the milling machinery at the south-west end, while the second-floor is occupied by full height timber grain bins. These were stocked from a central walkway at attic level, reached from the first-floor via a timber stair. The interior retains virtually all its original structural timber. The roof structure has a mixture of original and later machine-sawn replacement elements including rafters and purlins. The first floor of the ancillary range has a large room, originally containing auxiliary mill machinery, with modern regular roof trusses. The ground floor of the range contains a number of small storage/workshop/office rooms and a WC.

MACHINERY: the overshot waterwheel was a hybrid wooden and cast-iron type. The cast-iron naves, each with eight arms, survive but the wooden shrouds and iron floats have been lost. The octagonal timber wheelshaft is a replacement dating to c1962. The brick-walled wheel house has been demolished.

Internally the early C19 machinery is largely complete. The primary gearing on the ground floor has its cast-iron pit wheel with wooden cogs, cast-iron wallower, square-section main drive shaft, cast-iron spur wheel with wooden cogs and two of the original three stone nuts with their tentering gear. There is also a centrifugal governor, connected to the two remaining millstones by iron lever. This evens out fluctuations in the gearing and is an unusual feature in a watermill.

At first-floor level, two of the originally three pairs of millstones remain. One pair remains virtually complete with its wooden octagonal stone tun, horse and shoe. The hopper is missing. The other surviving pair of stones has been dismantled and the furniture is missing. There is also a screw conveyor which allowed several meal sacks to be filled simultaneously.

Above the millstones is the secondary gearing, which powered sack lifts and other ancillary machinery in the mill. The gearing consists of the crown wheel, with wooden cogs, at the top of the main shaft and two lay shafts slung from hangers fixed to the second floor joists and connected to the crown wheel by bevelled pinions. The lay shafts have a number of cast-iron pulley wheels at first floor level. The downstream shaft powered the sack hoist at attic level where the wooden pulley block and spindle for the sack chains survives. The upstream lay shaft powered pulleys connected to grain cleaning and flour dressing and mixing machinery. This machinery has been removed but a number of associated cast-iron and wooden pulley wheels survive in-situ.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

491712

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Other
Speldhurst Watermill: Millwrighting Report on the Structure and Working Parts - Luke Bonwick on behalf of SPAB Mills Section (September 2014)

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