Old Corn Mill, Low Bradley, North Yorkshire

Description

BRADLEYS BOTH

246/0/10009 MILL LANE
22-JAN-09 Low Bradley
Old Corn Mill

II
Corn watermill, C18 with early C19 alterations, probably medieval origins, converted to a cow byre in the early C20.

MATERIALS
Mostly local thin-bedded Millstone Grit rubble sandstone used for walling with larger flags used for roofing, some areas of walling employ coarser rubble. Massive, dressed grit stone used for quoins and lintels. Dressed stonework of the wheelhouse carry masons' marks. Interior timber includes oak beams and later imported softwood.

PLAN
North west to south east orientated 2 storey, 5 bay mill with gable end cart opening to the south east and a 2 storey, 2 bay cart house/store to the north west. An enclosed waterwheel house is on the side beneath a catslide roof. Extending to the south east of the wheelhouse there is a later 2 storey extension above the culverted tailrace.

EXTERIOR
South west elevation: Slightly scattered fenestration to the mill building. First floor has 4 openings, the second from the left being a taking-in door, the other three all being windows formed with plain stone surrounds. These stone surrounds are dressed with broad tooling said to be typical of Georgian date. The windows retain remains of joinery showing that they were 9 pane fixed lights with narrow glazing bars. The cills of the windows are all just above a building break marking the original wall top before the roof was raised. The lower stonework is more uniformly coursed and built of flagstones; the upper stonework includes some flags but is mainly courser rubble, including a number of large, minimally dressed stones. The ground floor has 5 main openings. It has a nearly central, stone-framed doorway, its lintel being a well dressed stone incorporating mortice slots cut in its current front face. This lintel is a re-used stone and may have originally been part of a sluice, one of several similar reused stones in the building. To the left there is a three light mullioned window with a flat faced stone surround that is channelled, possibly to receive horizontal iron bars. This window also retains the remains of multi-paned joinery. A smaller undivided window lies to the left flanked by stone framed ventilation holes. Similar, blocked ventilation holes flank an inserted doorway to the right of the central entrance. This inserted doorway is unlike the other openings as it lacks stone framing to the sides. To the right of the inserted doorway is the final window. This is stone framed, but is more rectangular than the almost square windows on the first floor. This window also retains the remains of joinery.

Adjoining to the left of the mill building, slightly set back, is a 2 storey, 2 bay cart shed/store. This has 2 stone-framed windows retaining remains of joinery at first floor and a large cart opening below to the right with a replacement steel lintel. This building may also be of more than one phase as the upper walling uses more uniformly sized and flagstone-like stones than the lower part that is poorly coursed and includes a number of large undressed stones.

South east gable: There is a central inserted cart opening formed by a segmental arch of flags with large spring stones above quoined jambs. At the time of the inspection one of the oak planked and ledged doors remained on its hinges, the other lay fallen to the side. Above to the right there is a window at first floor level that cuts the line of the original, slightly lower roof line. The gable end is quoined up to the original height of the sidewalls. To the right there is a 2 storey extension infilling the corner between the gable end of the mill and the end of the set back waterwheel house. This extension is built of a single leaf of stonework, has a stone framed doorway to the left and a roughly inserted window to the right. Above there are 2 further windows. One to the right is stone framed and retains a timber, multi-paned casement; that to the left is at a higher level and appears to be inserted. It also retains joinery, a six paned fixed light.

North east elevation: This mainly consists of the wheelhouse which is quoined and is blind apart from a now blocked, stone-framed opening marking the axle position of the waterwheel, and an inserted window at the southern end of the wheel pit which would have lit the start of the tailrace. This window was probably inserted following the construction of the 2 storey extension infilling the corner between the wheelhouse and the gable end of the mill. This extension covers a large opening in the end of the wheelhouse that now forms an internal doorway.

North western gable: This is mainly covered by the rising ground of the former mill pond dam. There is one window high in the gable end of the store room.

INTERIOR
Mill: The ground floor of the south eastern bay of the mill building is divided off with an inserted wall including an internal doorway, with the area to the south of the gable end cart entrance separated off by a further inserted wall to form a small office. The rest of the mill building was undivided except for the early C20 timber built cattle stalls. Theses cattle stalls, although both well built and preserved, are not considered to be of special interest in a national context. The upper floor is supported by 4 substantial, roughly hewn oak beams which support joists and wide floor boards. The ceiling in the northern corner is lower and reinforced with massive softwood beams supported by H section iron posts. This is the site of the milling machinery with probably two sets of mill stones on the floor above. Various sockets, notches and other features in the surrounding walls and timberwork provide evidence of the arrangement of mill machinery. This includes a blocked circular opening through to the cart shed/store to the north west, possibly to allow for a drive belt to power a winch to the upper floor of the store. A low doorway through the north eastern wall is the position of the axle of the waterwheel. Next to it is a Jacob¿s ladder fixed to the wall to provide access to the upper floor. This upper floor is on three slightly different levels, with the milling floor forming the northern quarter being slightly lower and the south eastern bay, bound by the ground floor inserted wall, is slightly higher. The gable wall to the cart shed/store to the north west has a couple of window openings, one being blocked, and also a blocked taking-in doorway. The roof structure of the mill building is early C19 of imported sawn softwood kingpost trusses supporting ridge and double purlins.

Cart shed/store: This has openings through to the mill building, most of which have been blocked and are noted above. The wall also includes a couple of exposed, sawn off substantial oak beams that are considered to relate to staging for former milling machinery. The building formerly had an upper floor as evidenced by joist holes. The roof structure has a single roof truss supporting ridge and double purlins. It is a traditionally jointed kingpost truss of partially hewn timber.

Wheelhouse: This encloses a largely infilled waterwheel pit approximately 7m by 2m with additional space around the pit to provide maintenance access. Due to the conditions at the time of the inspection it was not possible to determine the position of the head race (which will be through the north western wall) to determine the type of wheel. The infilling of the wheel pit may preserve remains of the wheel and may also include dumps of milling equipment cleared during the conversion of the mill into a cow byre. Any such archaeological remains will be of significance. The south eastern end of the wheelhouse has a doorway through to the extension. This opening has a re-used stone for a lintel incorporating mortice slots (interpreted as part of a former sluice). It appears to have been an original opening into the wheelhouse and would have been designed to provide light for maintenance work on the wheel and for clearing debris from the start of the tailrace. The extension retains its upper floor accessed via a ladder.

ADDITIONAL ITEM
Immediately adjacent to the western corner of the cart shed/store there is a stone post marking a footpath. This post is another morticed stone interpreted as part of a former sluice.

HISTORY
The current mill building is believed to be on the site of the medieval manorial mill for High Bradley, serving both High and Low Bradley with the merger of the townships in circa 1284 to form Bradleys Both. The Bolton Priory Compotus accounts for 1314 record repairs to the mill at Bradleys Both and a manorial mill is again noted in the early C16. In 1752 J and T Barret are listed as millers, in 1804 it is Jonas Sugden, Cooper and Sugdon in 1822 and in 1838 Jonas Sugden junior. The mill is shown on the Enclosure map of 1791 together with a narrow mill pond to the north east. The Tithe Award map of 1843 illustrates a number of alterations including a new triangular mill pond to the north of the mill, the shortening of the earlier mill pond, as well as the addition of the wheelhouse and an attached building (thought to have been a store room) to the original mill. The 1854 Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1848) shows this arrangement together with a new leat feeding the original reservoir from Bradley Gill to the south east. The building is labelled Bradley Mill (corn) and it is still named as such on the 1891 map, but by the time of the 1909 Ordnance Survey map the mill had probably ceased operation as it is no longer labelled. It is believed that by this time it was owned by the Chester family of the nearby Ghyll Farm who converted the building into a cow byre with feed storage above. The store room on the north side of the building was ruinous by the 1938 map with only two walls still depicted which were cleared later in the C20.

REASON FOR DESIGNATION
The old corn mill is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* It is an example of well preserved pre-1840s vernacular architecture.
* It is a nationally rare surviving example of a water powered cornmill that still retains evidence of the arrangement of the milling machinery
* For the additional interest that the building is multiphased and preserves evidence of earlier mill buildings on the site

Reasons for Listing

The old corn mill is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

External Links

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Old Corn Mill

A Grade II Listed Building in Low Bradley, North Yorkshire

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Description

Reasons for Listing

External Links

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