NDFT3A.DOC. New Version post 15.8.95. incorporating DFT2 and 2A".Doc & CAT.DOC.

VERSION GIVEN TO BEN EDWARDS TO EDIT 22.9.95.

WATERMILLS OF NORTH WEST LANCASHIRE.By

Hudson, Brown, Dickinson & Wakes (??)

Total word length not to exceed 20,000. plus maps, plans, illustrations, photos, bibliography and index(?). Gazetteer to be extra?.

INTRODUCTION.

Pt 1. History.

Pt 2. Technology.

Pt 3. Date order selection of representative sites to be discussed in some detail.

a) Barton.b) Catshaw.c) Dolphinholme.d) Caton Mills.e) Freckletonf) Lentworth (??? Post 22.9. 95) Input from contrebis article and edit).

Pt 4. Wyre and Gazetteer list.

Pt 5. Lune and Gaz list.

Pt 6. Ribble and Gaz list.

Pt 7. Conclusion.

PJH 12.9.95.

**********

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WATERMILLS OF NORTH WEST LANCASHIRE.

INTRODUCTION.

This book on water mills has been long in the making, and contains information that has been gathered by careful and painstaking work in an effort to produce a volume that can be of use to interested persons in all walks of life.

History of all kinds comes alive along the river and stream banks of the north west, for the casual visitor, enthusiast and student alike.

Studying any map of the area will be useful in following the main water courses, the rivers Lune, Ribble, and Wyre and their tributaries, the Calder, Brock, Conder, Wenning, Hodder, Douglas and many other smaller streams too numerous to mention. It will be seen that every few miles these watercourses have their banks punctuated with weirs, leats, ponds and mill sites.

These man made structures, in some cases built many centuries ago, are the remains of an outdated and often forgotten technology. A technology that used a renewable energy resource, water, and was a pollution free environmentally friendly source of motive power, in stark contrast to the methods in use today.

Our ancestors knew the advantages of harnessing water power, and the energy stored in the flowing rivers and streams, and used it as an important source of mechanical power before the invention of steam and electricity.

Another factor germane to the north west was that high all year round rainfall provided a fairly reliable water source, and the topography of the area meant that the number of potential sites abound, almost all the rivers and even their tributaries and minor streams could furnish all the elements any prospective watermill builder would need.

What evidence remains on the ground today on these sites is usually very little, often just an abandoned weir, headrace or leat, the last traces of a once vital industry. A water mill was often the only industry outside agriculture that provided work and a bare living in the north west's pre and semi-industrialisation period.

But not all these mill sites have been totally abandoned and destroyed, many traces of them are still there in the landscape for the interested to search out and discover.

To the enquiring there are many questions to ask; why were these mills built? who built them? how did the water drive the wheels? what did the mills produce? Etc.

Maps are available such as the Ordnance Survey Pathfinder Series which show many mills sites. A visit to the Library is also recommended where the 6" O S maps are usually to be found, these maps show mill and water powered sites in much greater detail.

The word "mill" marked in some context on a map is often a clue to a site of a watermill, as are place names e.g., Mill Bridge, Mill Lane, Dam Head, Mill Farm etc.

Tracing the clues on a map and then exploring on the ground to confirm the site is a rewarding and fascinating study. What you can find on mill sites is not always what you expect. Some have gone completely, others have been converted to houses, while some have been altered into modern factories. But in the north west many of the sites are in remote and picturesque settings and well worth the effort of finding them. A word

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of warning, many have been converted to private dwellings on private land, so please respect the owners privacy. However, the majority of owners will share your enthusiasm for the history of the place and the mill if approached sympathetically. The following chapters discussing particular sites have been carefully written to show a selection of the types of mill in the area in order to give the reader some insight into the range of material that is available on this subject.

The following text, with maps and surveys, and an accompanying gazetteer, list the majority of watermills that were built in north west Lancashire, together with their uses. The National Grid reference pinpoints their exact location. Information on each mill site is included in the area list and its present state of preservation shown on a scale A to G, and there is a gazetteer on a selection of sites.

A. Preserved and maintained in working order.B. Mill and site in evidence but in disrepair.C. Mill and site in industrial use, few remains of water power.D. Mill converted to residential property.E. Mill building used for other purposes.F. Ruins and traces of original site.G. No trace of original site.

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HISTORY.

For centuries, as in many English counties, water power harnessed to a mill played a vital role in the agricultural and industrial development of North West Lancashire.

Waterwheels gave the first major impetus to the County's cotton industry placing it on a factory basis in the closing years of the 18th century, before which generation after generation had relied upon the waterwheel principally for the milling of the cereal harvest.

Windmills were a later introduction to the corn milling scene and although their numbers were substantial, especially in the Fylde area,1 they were always outnumbered by their water-driven counterparts that had become widespread by medieval times. Of the water-powered industries of the North West, corn milling was to be the first, always in the majority, and the last to become redundant. Some appeared in the coastal creeks as tide mills as at Cockerham2 and Freckleton;3 many became resident on the Lancashire plain; but most were scattered about the undulating terrain eastwards taking advantage of the power potential on offer from the Pennine watersheds.

The Victorians looked upon the rural watermill, snug in its idyllic surroundings with an air of romanticism, as a reflection of some bygone Utopian age. Poet, novelist, painter and song writer alike, capturing the "old mill by the stream" image, promoted such sentiments. Yet for many a mill this notion was an illusion. Excursions into historic records reveal that it was common for the "old mill" to be at the centre of bitter controversies such as disputes regarding land and water rights, soke rights, tenancy payments, accusations of unfair trading etc, and the forces of mother nature herself could create havoc when least expected.

The north west Lancashire area was under Roman domination by A.D.79 and with the invaders came the stone handmills of the type unearthed in the vicinity of the legions' military outpost at Kirkham. The upland region called Quernmore,4 east of Lancaster, as the name suggests, may well have supported a thriving quarrying industry for the production of stone hand querns long before the Romans arrived. It is most likely that this activity was carried on by them in the early years of occupation; they certainly had pottery and brick kilns in the area.5

However, the Romans had knowledge and experience of a mechanical grinding mill appropriately called the "Roman" or "Vitruvian" mill, and during the centuries of Roman occupation, a small number of these water-driven mills, with vertical wheels would have been erected within the newly formed major communities.

During the Dark Ages and the Saxon era, villages began to form on open ground and in clearings in the wooded areas, but cereal growing was not a high priority in their farming programme. Rather than agriculturists the new settlers were pastoralists devoted to the rearing and feeding of stock. It is not thought that there was much arable land the growing of cereals in quantity, which leads one to suggest that developments in corn milling technology had, by this time, come to a virtual standstill.

1. Clark Windmill Country ??

2. Cockersands Chartulary, page No??

3. Walker, R. Freckleton Water Mill, 1942.

4. Ekwall, E. Place Names in Lancashire

5. Hudson, P.J. Notes on Roman Kiln Sites etc.

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Existing practice still involving the hand quern to a large extent, especially in remote areas, and the operation of the few surviving Roman mills using vertical, undershot wheels.

Towards the end of the 9th century a series of raids was carried out on the Lancashire coastline by Norsemen who, by the beginning of the 10th century had settled in Lancashire. Like the Romans and Saxons before them, the Norse people made use of the mechanised mill and have been credited with the introduction of the "Norse" or "Greek" mill, which has a long history and is recorded being used in the hill regions of the eastern Mediterranean for some 3000 years.6

The mechanical operation of the Norse mill was simple, in that it used direct drive. The upper stone, that is the runner stone, was fixed to the wheel and, in the absence of gearing, therefore, ran at the same speed.

Norse mills, many still in use during the 19th century in the Scottish Highlands, the Shetlands, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, were easy to erect near any source of fast flowing water; gill becks and hill streams being of more use than a sluggish lowland river. Little power was produced so grinding was slow, but quite adequate for milling small quantities of grain on demand.

Norse mills had a wide range in Medieval Europe and were thought to be common in the Lake District,7 so there is every possibility that many Norse mills were in operation in Lancashire, before the Norman Conquest, hidden away in the hills.

The idea behind the use of a horizontal wheel, as in the Norse Mill was never developed until the early 1800's when the design principal was applied to the development of the water turbine which, by the end of the century, had made the conventional vertical waterwheel obsolete.

Lythe Brow mill at SD 521 619 in north-east Quernmore, is a site marked on the 6" Ordnance Survey map as a "Roman Kiln". This structure was investigated by G. M. Leather and others8 in the 1960s and 70s, without any conclusions or finding any reliable dating material.9 A recent field inspection has come to the following tentative interpretation of this site. It is, possibly a pre-medieval "Norse Type" water powered site10 or a later medieval water mill of similar design.11

6?. Derry T.K. & Williams T.I. A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900. Oxford 1960, 250.

7. Davies-Shiel, M. Watermills of Cumbria. 1978. Dalesman.

8. Leather, G.M. and Webster, P.V. (1988) 'The Quernmore Kilns' in Jones, G D B and Shotter, D C A 'Roman Lancaster. Rescue Archaeology in an Historic City 1970-75.' Brigantia Monograph

9. Hudson, P.J. Notes on Roman Kiln Sites in Quernmore, Contrebis Vol XVIII (1993), 23-38.

10. Hudson P J., Some Unrecorded Water Powered Sites in Quernmore Forest. Contrebis Vol. XIV, 1988. 13-23.11?. In the yard of Askew Hill farm is a small millstone some 2ft diameter. with a square central hole, cut flat underneath. This could be a Norse type millstone.

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It was not until the establishment of the Normans in Lancashire after the conquest of 1066, that water power in the region began to make technological advances.

The Domesday Survey, commissioned at Christmas, 1085 by King William I, records over 600012 water powered mills in England,13 but none were recorded in north-west Lancashire.

The Norman lords, set up throughout the land by William to establish control, were ruthless in their duty, and it is perhaps about this time or soon afterwards, that the hand quern used for generations was outlawed by the authorities; such prohibition probably being in support of soke rights. These rights came from legislation associated with the new manorial mills, whereby a tenant, having grown his corn on tenancy land, was compelled to have his corn ground at the manorial mill unless circumstances allowed him to take his corn elsewhere. With a soke right in force one can imagine the situation of a grower in an isolated area having to carry his cereal crop for miles along a primitive track only to pay charges in cash or kind at the manorial mill, before returning homeward with the finished product. Once established, soke rights were religiously preserved, new mill buildings invariably following on the foundations of the old, so keeping intact the legal manorial privilege.

Charges for grinding corn were known as "mulcture payments", a system devised in the early medieval period. This was a period which was not based on a money economy, most members of society having to barter or pay for their services in kind. The mulcture was no exception, for in most cases the charge for the service would be taken in kind, i.e. part of the corn ground was retained to cover the cost, or in some examples the mulcture was converted into a payment by other goods to the Lord, or by providing a service to the manor. For example in the Lytham records of 1714,14 the price for grinding half a peck (a peck being a 2 gallon measure) of blend corn was 1s.3d. What kind of mill at Lytham was providing this service, (wind horse or water, as all three are recorded) is unknown, but Edward Nuttall was to pay an additional 3d, probably because he came from outside the manor boundary.

A few decades after the Normans had settled in Lancashire, many of the Saxon period watermills were pulled down to be replaced by the first windmills. They were known as "post mills" in that they could be revolved about a central post to bring their sails into wind. It was not uncommon for a manor to have both windmill and watermill, but the former as a post mill was vulnerable to North West winters and invariably bowed out to the watermill as the years passed.

Encouraged by the Normans, many religious orders from France had settled into Lancashire by the 12th century, where they become, in effect, the first “industrialists” to harness water power on a substantial scale.

The tide mill at Cockerham would have been associated with the nearby Cockersands Abbey, formed in 1190 as a monastery for the Premonstratarian Order from what had been a hermitage between 1154 and 1189. In 1156 a grant associated with his manor in Cockerham by William of Lancaster, mentions a tide mill..."cum salanis et molendinis..."

12. Price, J.W.A. Industrial Archaeology of the Lune Valley, p11.

13. Many of the mills listed in Domesday are probably the Norse type. See Syson, L. British Watermills, Batsford, London. 1965, 33.

14. Lytham Mill, ??

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The original water mill at Whalley had been erected by a Cistercian foundation, and not far away was another monastic mill at Sunderland,15 in Balderstone. belonging to the Sawley Abbey Estate. In the second half of the 13th century, Richard, son of William de Balderstone, issued charters to allow the monks to build a mill and to take water from the River Ribble. In 1522, the Abbott of Sawley had to pay 3s.4d (half a mark) for leading water to his mill from the River Ribble. This mill remained under Abbey control until the Dissolution.

Before 1150 there were large tracts of lowland Lancashire that was scrub, woodland and forest. This was systematically cleared by the religious orders, much of it for rearing sheep to produce wool for the new woollen industry, of which fulling was an important process. This involved the pounding of the woollen cloth in water which had been treated with fuller's earth thereby shrinking and thickening the cloth from loosely woven fabric to a tight knitted one.

Fulling was the first and only textile related process for quite a long period to be mechanised by water power; the first record of a fulling mill in this county being about 1168.

In some mills the cloth was pounded by human feet, hence they were referred to as "walk mills", but in the mechanised mills heavy wooden hammers, tripped by the water powered machinery, fell under their own weight to pound the cloth. Such a mechanical principal was also adopted in the water driven iron forges.

The Chew Mill site, SD 716 363, at Billington near Whalley, once had a corn mill and a fulling mill sharing the same wheel fed from the River Calder.16 A water-powered corn mill had been recorded there in 1272, presumably it was this mill which Henry de Lacy granted to Henry de Hacking in 1329. The Chew Estate was granted to Whalley Abbey about three years later. The fulling mill was most likely built soon after this by the monks to serve their estates, and with only the one wheel the arrangement was that the corn mill had its use from sunrise to sunset, and the fulling mill from sunset to sunrise. After the Dissolution the Abbey Estates went to the Crown and sold to Sir Thomas Holcroft in 1554. In due course the Billington property came under the ownership of judge Thomas Walmsley whose descendants were to be the Petre family of Dunkenhalgh.

Within a few decades of the Conquest there was a well-developed network of villages and small towns in Southern and Middle England, with a settled and growing populace whose livelihoods were linked to arable and livestock production within an imposed feudal lordship-manorial system. This was a system that created a demand for corn grinding mills of all descriptions, usually linked to a moiety or mulcture held either by the Crown or the Lord of the Manor.

The picture in the North West was, perhaps, not quite the same and not so easy to explain, partly because there was a lower density of population with less cleared and improved land The heavy clay soils made so much of the land unsuitable for the growing of cereals. Also the land holding and administration system appears to have been different to that in many other places in England. In the north-west large tracts of land were retained as Royal Forest that imposed strict regulations on any one wanting to enclose and improve. Also there were large tracts of land given over to the control of the newly founded Monastic houses which, in some places, led to dispossession of local communities and closely guarded mill and water rights. In some areas e.g., Wyresdale 15. The Mill at Sunderland, Whalley Hist Soc. Vol 3. No.1.

16. Chew Mill, Whalley Hist Soc. Vol 1. No4.

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and south in Quernmore, the land was managed as vaccary estates (cattle rearing farms) held by the crowns Grande Lessees who maintained a system that was mainly pastoral.17

Such control of land in the North West went on for centuries, a classic case occurring in 1623, when Thomas Sherborne obtained a licence to erect a corn mill at his own expense at Dunkinshaw18 in the Forest of Wyresdale and was to pay the King a yearly rent of 13s.4d. There was only one other mill in the area at Lentworth, which at this time did not possess a soke right.

Sherborne’s petition for a licence had indicated that those poor men wanting their corn milled had to carry it on their backs two or three miles to the mill, and many times had to stay there for two or three days before their corn could be ground.

The owner of Lentworth, Thomas Clayton II, took court action at the issue of the license and the building of Dunkinshaw Mill. The final outcome in a Duchy of Lancaster court-hearing in the second half of the 1620s was that Dunkinshaw Mill, which had been built by then, was not to grind corn of inhabitants within three miles of Lentworth Mill. All such inhabitants were to grind all their corn at Lentworth except that if it could not be ground within 24 hours (Sunday not to count), they could take it elsewhere. They were not to come in multitude of throng together by practice purposely to overcharge the said mill. Thus Lentworth Mill was provided with a "suit the mill", a soke right, a privilege still being written into leases as late as 1746.19

By the late thirteenth century water powered corn mills were becoming a common sight in the landscape of north-west Lancashire. There was also some continuity of occupation, for as recent as the mid nineteenth century many of these medieval foundation date watermill sites were still in common use in north-west Lancashire.

The late-medieval period also saw some movement through a changing political system and the licensing (for a suitable fee) of new mill sites, for these had the potential of providing revenue to moiety holders and the crown exchequer.

There are no recorded Domesday mills in north west Lancashire, the earliest reliable dates for pre-fourteenth century mills working in the north-west vills are:- Lancaster Mills 1149,20 Aldcliffe Mill 1150,21 Cockerham 1156, Lytham 1199,22 Bolton le Sands 1200, Stodday 1201,23 Thurland 1208, Wedaker 1212, Catterall 1216, Beetham 1220,

17. Hudson P.J. The Vaccary Lands in Quernmore Forest, Contrebis Vol20 1995.

18. ref needed for Dunkinshaw mill.

19. Edwards B.J.N. Lentworth Mill in Contrebis. Vol.19

20. Farrer, W. Lancashire Pipe Rolls. Chetham Society 1902. 298; Charter of Ranulf Earl of Chester to the priory confirming their liberties, dated 27th July, 1149, gives them a right of some emoluments of the mill at Lancaster.

21. Farrer, W. Lancaster Charters, 37.The Abbot and convent of Sees made a grant to Gilbert to be able to raise the causeway of his pond on their land at Aldcliffe, fee of ONE POUND OF PEPPER annually, he granted to them the tithes of his mills upon the pond and the tithe of fishes upon the pond.

22. Fishwick, History of the Parish of Lytham in the County of Lancaster, Chet Soc NS 60, 1907.

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Caton 1230,24 Ellel 1240,25 Skerton 1246, Halton 1251, Beetham 1254, Claughton 1255, Chatburn 1258, Hackensall 1262, Cleveley 1280, Hornby 1285, Dolphinlee 1290.

All these mills were subject to the mulcture, with the exception of Lancaster, where in 1193 the township had bought its release from Count John's suit of his mills.26

In the fourteenth and fifteenth century several other mills (presumably new or re-builds) are recorded at Barton, Bradford, Chipping, Grindleton, Preston, Salmesbury, Sandholme, Sellett and Slaidburn.

Early and reliable information for the medieval period is evident in the records of the Abbeys, Burscough, Cockersands, Furness and Whalley being four examples, and inquests, court books, close rolls, manorial records, chartularies, Duchy records, the Forest Eyre Attachment Rolls and the Master Foresters Accounts, all have information on mills, millers and fullers for this important period.

In the records of the Royal Forest areas of north west Lancashire references to mills are common, for example:

Eyre of 1290: Richard of Dolfineleye the miller "cut down alders in a sparrow hawks eyry and destroyed the eyry in the forest of Quernmore", presented ‘taken to the castle by G. of Clifton the sheriff and delivered to the prison’, and mainperned by his brother Alan and John of Parles.

In the fines at the Swanimote of 1478-80, "Christopher Petchet holds of the miller of Conder one pyche in the water there and it obstructs the water course and disturbs the fishing, ordered to remove it 2d. fine.27"

The "miller of the Conder" must refer to Petchet or others operating the Conder Mill situated at SD 510 595 on the township border with Scotforth.28 This was a medieval cornmill presumed to have been used by both townships. Later in the seventeenth century it was the main corn grinding mill for Quernmore, for by this time Scotforth had its own corn mill and windmill sited in Scotforth village at SD 486 599.

23. Simpson Rev., Robert. The History and Antiquities of the town of Lancaster, Edmondson, Lancaster. 1852, 228; Reference in lists of lands etc of priory c.1201, William de Lancaster gave the priory a rent of 12 pence, payable out of his mill at Stodale (Stodday) for permission to have a chapel on his manor of Esseton (Ashton).

24. Lancaster Inquests and Extents. i,184/5; Writ of 1251 has Roger de Heysham holding a third part of the fulling mill, in Katon (Caton) and a third part of the water corn mill worth 40s yearly: (p224 same entry for 1259.) and Roger Gernet, master forester holds a third, and same 40 shillings.

25. Farrer, W. The Chartulary of Cockersands Abbey. Chetham Society. 768. Records gift of the mulcture of the mill at Ellel of corn growing on his land from Walter de Ellel c.1240, but there is a grant of c1200 for a fulling mill, see. CC.V3.1.NS. vol. 56.(1905), 799.

26. Farrer, W. Lancashire Pipe Rolls, 416; Grant of Liberties by Count John to Burgesses of Lancaster twelfth June 1193 includes freedom from the suit of his mill.

27. Shaw op.cit., 191.28?. Though it must be remembered that there is another mill possibly run of the river Conder which was demolished in 1726, and the mill on Rowton Beck to the east.

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This Conder Mill has a long history, and more recently it was here that J. Bibby and Sons of Liverpool had their origins, through Edward Bibby, the firm's founder. He was the son of a miller in Wyresdale29 and served his milling apprenticeship there. He later worked at Milnthorpe Mill before taking Conder Mill at the age of 41, in 1820.30 The mill was purchased by him in 1830 for £1,450.00, with a £1,000 mortgage.

It was a three storey mill of stone and slate with adjacent mill house and a 30 acre farm. The owners of the site changed their trading name to J. Bibby & Son in 1878 with premises in Lancaster, in Fleet Square (the Steam Mills).31

The Conder mill building was destroyed by fire on 1st July 188532 and not rebuilt, but the adjoining houses still survive, as does the farm. Edward's son, James Bibby, lived on the site until his death on 2nd. July 1897 aged 85. Unfortunately no mill building or machinery survives, but the millpond fed by the Conder remains and there is a culverted headrace under the road and several millstones preserved in the front yard.

Other industry in the north-west used water power as a means of mechanising their work.

The production of wrought iron from primitive bloomeries that had been practised in north Lancashire since before Roman times but without an water power, eventually installed water powered bellows. These were used to create a draught for raising smelting temperatures and had enhanced effect on production by the seventeenth century. One example is at Yealand Redmayne north of Lancaster is the site of the Leighton Furnace of 1713 at SD485778.33 Once an important blast furnace, now the site is almost cleared but waster ‘mossers’ and slag heaps remain. Slag may also be observed alongside the headrace to Forse Bank Forge of c1779 at Halton near Lancaster.34 Later in the eighteenth century as more bar iron became available, many small firms that used water power appeared throughout the county, some specialising in the production of agricultural tools wrought in “factory conditions” taking over much of the work usually done by the local blacksmith.

The coal and lead mining industry also adopted water wheels for pumping water, lifting loads up and down mine shafts, as well as providing the motive power for air extraction in pits and deep workings. The Hornby Castle Estate pits working coal seam in the Lune Valley in the first half of the 19th century had several waterwheels installed.35

29?. Faithwaite's Notebook dated thirteenth Aug. 1835, from William Bibby 5 pounds cash, rent of mill in Wyresdale. William is thought to be Edwards father.30?. Richmondshire Wills, Edward Bibby, Conder Mill, Lancaster, yeo, A, 1854.31?. Bibby, J.B. and C.L. A Millers Tale. A History of J. Bibby and Sons Ltd., Liverpool. 1978.32?. Lancaster Gazette, 2nd July 1885, report states loss was estimated at some £2000.

33. Lucas History of Warton.

34. Price J.W.A. The industrial Archaeology of the Lune Valley.

35. Hudson P.J. Some notes on the Hornby Castle Estates Coalming, in British Mining Memoirs Vol 50 1994.

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Some lead mining went on east of Chorley and also in the Bowland fells further north, where the first mining lease was issued by James I (1506-1625) to Richard de Hoghton. At the Whitendale and Brennand mines at SD645545 water-power was used for crushing, ore washing and winding, whilst an overshot wheel powered the lead smelting mill of 1824 at SD713483.36

After corn milling, the most extensive industry to rely on water power in the north west was textiles. The first phase of factory building arriving with the introduction of power-driven carding, roving and spinning machinery during the last quarter of the 18th century. Specialisation had already taken place by 1700 with the production of woollens in Rossendale; fustian's (which were fabrics of linen warp and cotton weft), in the Blackburn districts and linens in West Lancashire.

The flax industry which provided lined cloths for sheeting, canvas and sailcloth was evident in the north west during the 14th century. The Wyre creeks of Wardleys and Skippool being anchorage's in 1590 for ships bringing flax from the Baltic. The flax plant required clay soils with interrupted drainage and was grown locally for a time in Lancashire, Goosnargh being one district, supporting a domestic linen weaving industry. The now demolished Kirkham linen mill, built in the 18th century by John Birley and John Langton,37 had its oldest buildings around a mill dam to the east of the site.

Cotton arrived from the eastern Mediterranean during the 17th century to be used with linen to form fustian's, thus allowing the poorer populace a degree of freedom from the harsh woollen clothing that had been the only suitable fabric available for centuries. The rich still paid homage to silk and if cotton was to have a place in their wardrobe, it was as a garment lining.

In 1599, British trade with India became firmly established with the formation of the East India Company, and in the 1640's direct trading of cotton goods from India to Britain began. These arrived from the port of Calicut and were known as "calicoes", patterned prints which once adapted to English designs, began to attract aristocratic taste, and from then onwards silk began its decline.

Calico printing by the time consuming hand method had appeared by the mid 18th century in Lancashire. Edward Clayton of Bamber Bridge, near Preston was working as a calico printer in 1750, but it was with the introduction of machine printing in 1783, brought about by the first patent of Thomas Bell, an engineer at Mossley Hall Printworks, Walton-le-Dale, that waterpower came into its own for the cotton finishing process. Catterall Print Works, near Garstang, had 277 engraved copper rollers in 1831, by which time numerous water driven printing shops had been established in Lancashire, particularly in the Accrington and Chorley areas.

The north west was never a principle silk manufacturing area although it was to have a small number of scattered water-driven silk spinning factories; the Galgate one arriving late on the scene in the mid 1830s to achieve considerable success to well into the present century.38 Silk Mill Lane, near Inglewhite serves as a reminder of the industry, and an entry for 1821 in a diary of George Smith manager and agent for Marsden and Wright at Hornby Castle in the Lower Lune valley, indicates that by that date silk spinning or throwing as it was called in Lancashire was almost at an end. An entry in the diary for 13th January, 1821 in connection with the silk mill at Wennington shows

36. Higham, M.E. Phd Thesis?

37. Winterbottom, D. Chet Soc.

38. Nelson, J. Galgate Mill. Contrebis.

11

that John Skirrow had called in the evening to say he intended to pay Marsden the half years rent, which was in arrears, as soon as he could sell his machinery in the Wennington Mill, and hoped that the succeeding year would not be charged to him. It would appear that shortly afterwards Skirrow was bought out for cash by Thomas Albright from Lancaster, and an entry in the diary for 15th January, 1822, stated - "Thomas Albright called and said he would keep on the Silk Mill at Wennington."39 However, the factory did not operate for very long after 1823.

Closely related to the Lancashire textile industry, because it used linen and cotton waste from it, was paper making; the early mills where paper was hand made, employing water-power for driving wooden stamps which macerated the raw material into pulp. At Oakenclough Paper Mill in Bleasdale that started in 1775, the site of the waterwheel and the location of the dam that still holds water are still evident.

A revival in woollen fibre spinning was attempted and was to succeed at Dolphinholme in the closing years of the 18th century,40 but such a venture was to be short-lived and even though a change-over to cotton was made, this suffered a similar fate. Nearby Catshaw41 and Brock Bottom42 cotton spinning factories had fallen as victims to business decline and the ravages of fire by the 1860s. Their isolation, in being so far from the new communications networks and the expanding textile industry centres elsewhere in Lancashire, being a major setback to economic enterprise.

Even though many of the region's small number of water-driven textile concerns were quick to gear up on new technology by introducing steam engines and later, water turbines, their days as viable business establishments were numbered.43 Overbearing competition with the new steam-driven cotton factories, whose numbers had increased to large proportions in nearby towns such as Preston, Blackburn and Burnley by mid-century, finally sounded the death-knell for the country mills and many of their supporting water-powered industries, such as bobbin manufacture and foundry work.44

In the closing years of the 19th century a technological revolution had already begun in cereal milling with the introduction of large steam powered rolling mills which catered for popular winter wheat which had started to arrive from the United States. This American wheat was hard and therefore difficult to grind using the old traditional millstones, and many a Lancashire mill turned to grist-milling, manufacturing animal feed, before closure after the Second World War.

By the inter-war period of the present century the history of water power attributed to the North West region had turned full circle; the final remnants of its technology in the main being the few remaining working corn mills, all of which had closed soon after the Second World War.

39. Hudson P.J., A previously unrecorded silk mill in the Lower Lune Valley. Contrebis Vol XVIII, 1993. 46-51.

40. Hall, P.P. Dolphinholme, Transactions of the Fylde Historical Society. Vol.3. (1969).

41. Buckley, P. Con art.

42. Parker, S, Article on Brock Mills.

43. Dickinson, C. Book on Steam Mills ??etc.

44. Ashmore O, Ind Arch of N.W?

12

THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE WATERWHEEL.

As in other areas of England where waterpowered industries were in abundance, four distinct types of water wheel graced the Lancashire scene, and with the exception of the Poncelet wheel which was a 19th century development, their classification was as follows; undershot, overshot, pitch-backshot and breast wheel. (Fig ? diagrams of all types).

The undershot wheel having paddles relying on the impact of water at the bottom for propulsion, required a constant water flow of some strength and in this respect many a Lancashire river and stream were never really suitable for undershot wheels. In some instances, to overcome this problem, lengthy leats or headraces would have to be constructed, usually with an associated large dam to hold bulk water supplies, designed to narrow the flow thereby increasing its force as it approached the wheel. Impact produced energy loss and vibration stresses in wheels which made for low working efficiencies.

One person who contributed to the scientific study of water wheels was John Smeaton (1724-92) an engineer, born in Ansthorp, near Leeds, and of Eddystone Lighthouse fame. He made a scientific study of water wheels in 1752-3 and credited the undershot type with an efficiency of not more than 22%. The Abbey Corn Mill of 1837 at Whalley still has its large undershot wheel which ceased working in April 1961.

In the Poncelet Wheel, developed from the undershot wheel by the French engineer J V Poncelet, the water was channelled via an inclined sluice onto curved paddles enabling it to enter and leave the wheel with little shock. This established a claimed efficiency of 65%. The design was introduced into England during the 1820's but the wheel never became a strong contender for water-powered drive.

Overshot wheels began to appear in increasing numbers in the Middle Ages, partly out of a growing concern for power efficiency from a developing interest in mechanical engineering, and partly because their water supply could be stored and used when needed. It worked by flowing water entering and filling bucket type compartments at the top of the wheel which caused the wheel to rotate under its weight. This method lowered rotational stresses considerably. Efficiencies of between 60 and 70 %, were achieved, but extensive structural work for supporting the water channel or launder to the top of the wheel was common in an overshot arrangement. Also tail water leaving the wheel in shallow bottomed wheel-pits and bunding of water flowing opposite to the tailrace flow produced backwash which was responsible for power losses.

The problem of backwash was solved with the introduction of the pitch backshot wheel which had water entering bucket type compartments just below the top on the upstream side to rotate the wheel in the same direction as the tailrace flow.

A surviving example of the overshot type is the wheel at Castle Mill, a comparatively new mill, built in 1817, Quernmore, a mill that worked until c1951.

During the 18th century, the breastshot wheel, similar to the pitch backshot, was the most common type of water wheel at work in the north west. Water enters the wheel just above the centreline of its axle for the high breastshot and just below this line in the low breastshot. Wheels of this type offered efficiencies of between 55 and 65%, and were associated with lengthy leats and well-controlled water flows whose heads in general were about twelve feet or less. Until the end of the 18th century, wheels were of all wooden construction, one of the earlier designs being known as the compass arm

13

type in which the spokes, four or eight in number, passed directly into the axle tree which considerably weakened it. The existing wheel at Lentworth Mill, (often referred to as Caw Mill), is this type of construction.45

A later development was the clasp-arm wheel in which two pairs of parallel wooden spokes, or arms, on each side of the wheel, were set at right angles to each other, the axle tree passing through the square shaped space formed by the intersection of the spokes. Wooden wedges were then driven into the space to secure and align the wheel onto the axle tree. At the end of the spokes were fixed the felloes, these are segments of the wooden rim whose mating ends were strengthened by iron strips secured by bolts. Mounted on each end of the wheel shaft was an iron gudgeon pin generally secured to the shaft by iron hoops. The pit wheel at Lentworth is of a clasp-arm design, the technique of securing it to its axle tree by wooden wedges being clearly seen. (See Ben Edwd for use of his photos/diagram?)

Like the compass arm wheel, the clasp-arm type was not particularly strong at its centre, and as the age of using cast-iron progressed from the late 18th century, axle tree were fitted with cast bosses to receive the wooden arms. Iron felloes were also introduced with cast slots into which could be fitted the wooden buckets of elm to produce what was generally called a hybrid wheel. Further development led to the production of the forged axle and rim gearing, and in corn milling especially such hybrid type wheels were in use until the end of waterpower just after the mid 20th century. There were also a small number of all metal wheels, one example is the 10 foot diameter breast wheel at Capenwray Mill, and the tension type wheel with diagonally placed tension bars at Corless Mill.

The reasons behind the popularity of the hybrid wheel were many, with perhaps the main one being economy. Such wheels being cheaper to build than all metal ones. Age old traditions in woodcraft was perhaps another in that wooden arms could produce a strong enough wheel for milling with a potential power rating rarely exceeding fifteen horsepower. Compared to the old wheels of all wooden construction, the hybrid and iron types ensured better wheel balancing, thus reducing rotational stress to a minimum.

It is not uncommon to still find at some mill sites, wooden patterns used for producing the metal parts of wheels. At Castle Mill, Quernmore, a pattern for the wheels’ rim gearing may be seen, whilst at Cage Mill, Knowle Green, near Longridge, now a private residence, a wooden pattern for the felloes is on display.

Even though the cast iron gearing had become readily available for watermill power transmission systems by the mid 19th century, many mills retained their original wooden gearing until the end; one advantage of wooden gearing being that if a tooth or cog broke, (apple wood being used due to its greasy nature) a new one could easily be fitted.

Weirs and associated earthworks such as mill dams(ponds) and goits (headraces) of Lancashire's water power era still remain in large numbers in the landscape. Today many weirs still providing river flow control, whilst some lie abandoned and ruinous like the one in Brock Bottoms. Historical references and old plans use the term (dam) for a mill pond, rather than for the bank which confined the latter. Therefore in this text "dam" will refer to the mill pond. (Needs a glossary somewhere in front end).

Mill weirs were always liable to the wrath of nature and persons alike, and there are many references to disasters and damage. In July 1787, the weir at Dolphinholme on the river Wyre was breached by a great flood and washed out along with the fender 45. Edwards, B.J.N. see Contrebis Article.

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mouth in August, after which a new one was built of wood three-quarters of a mile upstream of the factory at a cost of £300. In 1610, a Wyresdale landowner complained that the weir of Lentworth Mill, the latter building having been erected in c1590, lay partly on his land, and that each year a great store of wood for maintenance of the weir was felled to the detriment of the Royal deer in the forest and to the tenants who needed the timber to repair their houses.

The size of weirs and materials employed to build them obviously varied from site to site. There were massive stone ones appearing on broad rivers designed to withstand high water pressures, the vee-shaped example on the Calder at Whalley is a good example. Crucial to the volume of water entering a head-goit or headrace was the height of the top kerb of a weir, which could be raised temporarily by the fitting of wash boards to the kerb. However, if the kerb was set too high it could impede the exit of water from mills upstream.

The weir at Calder Vale is a two-tier one, the lower level is built in stone, the upper one in wood, its shuttle to sluice mechanism being intact along with the large dam, and is complete with overflow facilities near the first grouping of workers cottages. At Barton Mill the overflow mechanism also remains along the redundant half mile headrace. The tail-race at Barton could have had a water flow problem after flood water in the brook had backed up in the tailrace channel depositing silt and debris, regular raking out was called upon.

Two important historical aspects of the water and wind powered corn-milling era was millstone manufacture and corn-drying.

The geology in several areas of the north-west contains a rock referred to as Gritstone, belonging to the upper carboniferous series of Namurian sandstone. This is a stone that was very suitable for the production of millstones and grindstones. There are historical references to the different kinds of corn grinding stones that have been found quarried from local stone, which date back to the pre-Roman times. In chronological classification the earliest types are: 1. the crude saddle-stone hand querns, 2. the bee-hive hand type querns of the Roman period, 3. the flatter and larger hand worked type querns of the Anglo-Norse period, and 4. the medieval period onward series of much larger stones that were worked in the water and wind driven mills. Today old querns and millstones can be found often in private hands, used as garden ornaments. A number of millstones still lay in situ on mill sites, others lay as partly worked stones on quarry and stone mine areas. Stone of different roughness and quality was used, and the way the stone was furrowed (cut and grooved), enabled usage for different types of work, e.g. grinding different types of crops or industrial materials. Evidence has also been gained from quernstones and millstones found on archaeological sites that are well documented and may be seen in museums and other collections.

Within the north west, and the Lancaster Forest area in particular, there is evidence to suggest that the gritstone was worked as daystone (random un-quarried stone), and also quarried or mined for general use as millstones, for many centuries.

Evidence of stone quarrying and working for millstones which could have met a local demand, has been found at the following sites, beginning with the most extensive ones; Baines Cragg, North East End of Birk Bank, Black Fell, Clougha east of the Pike, Clougha Scar, The Kellet Moor Grits, Hutton Roof, Windy Clough, Cragg Wood, Trough Brook, Whernside, Ingleton Fells and Roeburndale. Further south there were millstone quarries in Bowland at Lamb Hill, Anglezark and Leicester Hill near Brook House. To the south west millstones were quarried on Rivington Pike.

Just how ancient these quarry sites are is not known, but there are some early references which could well be connected. The twelfth and thirteenth century pipes

15

rolls for Lancaster46 and the monastic records47 have many references to rents for mills, and rights to mills and millstone making.

On the Baines Cragg site although there are various qualities of gritstone only two appear to be preferred for millstones, one type being slightly finer, i.e. less gritty, with finer quartz particles and a stronger matrix cement. This type has been used to manufacture the smaller models of millstone. The smaller type millstone is only some 24 to 36 inches in diameter and not as thick as the larger type which can measure up to 70 inches across by 12 inches thick.

Neither types of grit used are quartz breccia's which have been extensively worked for millstones in Wales and Derbyshire.48

On Baines Crag, suitable rock has been levered out of the crag face, chiselled of the Cragg top, or dug out of small pits, then knapped in situ into a rough shape. Some blanks are propped up on stone supports ready for working, having had a central mark punched into them. Others have been worked on one side and are tooled flat with a circular centre hole chiselled out to about half depth and then turned over. The worked stone was then moved down the Cragg to the road below, where better worked examples, almost finished, are to be found, the only apparent reason for their abandonment being slight damage by way of a chip or crack. On the Cragg some 23 blanks can be seen in various states of working.49

On the Black Fell area only eight partly worked millstones have been recorded, but there are extensive stone workings on this fell and further evidence is seen in the place-names used in the area, Millstone Rake being the main track way up onto a section of the workings named Millstone Rake Stead.

Grants given to monastic houses by the local landowners in the thirteenth century refer to the supply of millstones. For example, the Furness Coucher Charters recording in 1210-30, Gilbert de Kellet grants the monks of Furness deadwood and all the millstones they want from his lands..."ad me pertinat petras molares quantum et quando opus habuerint.."50

For the same period similar grants from other men of the Kellet area. Adam son of Orm of Kellet (1210-20);51 Thomas of Couparnmanwra (1260-80); William of Kellet (1235-45); Sir Ranulf Dacre grants on 31,12,1285 right to millstones in his Kellet lands..."..capiant in perpetuum lapides (petras) molares..".52

46. Farrer W. L. Lancashire Pipe Rolls. 1902.

47. Chetham Society, The Chartulary of Cockersands Abbey; and The Furness Coucher Book.

48. Tucker D G, Millstone Making in the Peak District of Derbyshire: The Quarries and the Technology, Industrial Archaeology 1986, 43.

49. Hudson, P.J. Old Mills, Gritstone Quarries and Millstone Making in the Forest of Lancaster. Contrebis Vol XV. 1989. pp.35-64.

50. Furness Coucher, 119.

51. Ibid, 119.

52. Ibid, 128.

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This is ample evidence, to make the grant of getting the rights to the gritstone quarries for millstones very valuable indeed. Unfortunately, in this general area of Kellet where the bands of suitable grits outcrop there is now little evidence of the workings. This is partly due to the fact that these areas have been extensively quarried, up to this century, for all the types of gritstone-sandstone, and some of the sites have been filled with rubbish and converted to other uses. However, it is possible to find fragments of the right kind of stone built into the walls of some of the earlier buildings in the area, and there are several fine specimens of old used millstones in various gardens in the district, where they are used for decoration.

Agistment rents for the Quernmore Forest as returned by the keeper William of Hornby, 1313-1453 mentions mill stones sold for six shillings although it is not clear if the millstones were from the Old Park of from the other forest lands.54 Such a sum for millstone sales might have been the fee for the right to work the gritstone and remove the stones; the finding, cutting and carting of millstones often being a customary duty in the medieval period. Hornby Castle Estates paid 26s 8d for a pair of millstones bought at Ingleton in 1582.

Judging from the number of mills in the Lancashire districts alone during this period, some of which have already been listed in chapter one, the demand for locally quarried millstone must have been of some magnitude. Also within the north west region are to be found a number of deserted, unrecorded and almost extinct remains of sites in keeping with watermill layouts. Many of these may well have been temporary watermills of the period under examination, possibly Norse type mills driving small millstones. Mills of other sorts for crushing, rolling, pulping etc, must have existed in the region, making use of local stone in their machinery.

The field evidence supports the view that working the gritstone to provide millstones, to meet a local need, has been carried out wherever the right type of stone has been located, regardless of accessibility. That the manufactured millstones were used locally and also, possibly, transported many miles to equip water corn mills all over the north west. During the medieval period, the movement of such large pieces of stone over considerable distances would be physically possible when considering that in the eleventh century, hundreds of tons of Caen Limestone blocks from Normandy were moved to England to build William the Conqueror's White Tower in London. Caen stone was also used on the cathedrals of Southern England. French Burr and Andernach Granite was also imported for millstones. Pieces of these rocks, cut and imported as interlocking sections, were cemented together and held by iron bands to form complete millstones, which were most suitable for fine grinding. A good example of this type from Thurnham Mill, may be found on the Corless Mill site near Scorton. Two other sites having French burrs are Cravens Mill, Wennington and the new mill at Bolton le Sands.

Corn drying was an important pre-milling operation in that damp grain could clog the millstone surfaces, and for oats the moisture content had to be low enough for the husks to become brittle enabling them to be readily split during milling. The simple field kiln, documented time and time again and shown on early large scale maps, was a hollowed out pit containing a fire, above which the corn was dried on a layer of stiff haircloth, possibly horsehair, laid over stone or timber slats supported on the banks around the pit. Field names such as Kiln field and little kiln field as at Chew for example, and circular depressions in many a field, bear testimony to this old method of corn drying which was widespread up to and during the 17th century, particularly in the clay-soil districts.

53. Lancs Inquests,. Rec Soc V54,ii, 22.

54. Cunliffe-Shaw, R. The Royal Forest of Lancaster, Preston 1956.

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An account of 1770 for Barton Mill mentions "...Little Kiln Field, Great Kiln Field, Far Kiln Field, East Kiln Field" and indication of the mills' long standing association with the field kiln. But some of these kilns at Barton might well have been brick kilns as there is visible evidence seen in the terracing to the south of the site.

The mill was a rebuild of 1832 mostly in brick and it is assumed for the rebuild and the previous phases of building, bricks were burnt on the site. An entry in the Barton Estate accounts for the Shuttlewoth family in November 1612, mentions "thirty yards of haircloth for the kiln of Barton". A lease of 1759 for Lentworth Mill that binds the lessee to the duty of repairs, providing hair cloth is mentioned. Among the items of expenditure recorded by the Bursars of Whalley Abbey in 1520 was the sum of 19s 6d for a haircloth for the kiln..."pro cilicio ad usterinum".55

In districts where building stone was readily available, kiln barns, similar to those erected on Orkney and in Caithness, may well have appeared in Lancashire during the late and immediate post medieval period. The Scottish design accommodated winnowing and the drying of grain under one roof, and was detached from its farmstead. Knapped stone walls supported a roof of timber members bearing flagstones covered with turf thatch; one end of the roof rising to form a chimney for the kiln bowl within which lay the drying floor of cross wooden spars surmounted by a layer of straw to support the grain which would have been oats and bere.

Last century, the vaccary of Dunkinshaw, in Over Wyresdale, came up for sale after the death of John Fenton-Cawthorne, and mentioned in the particulars were farmhouse, barn, stable, shippon and other outhouses, plus a corn mill, drying kiln and cottage. It is believed that some of the farm buildings and the corn mill had been erected soon after 1798, the mill replacing an earlier one. An accompanying plan for the sale clearly shows the kiln detached from its mill. Such a detachment of the two buildings illustrates what must have been a common arrangement as a fire precaution, when drying floors had traverse stone bars supporting straw or haircloth, as was the case in a Patterdale kiln, Cumbria, erected around 1600. (Ref needed?).

Only when perforated clay tiles and iron plates on joists of cast or wrought iron were to offer a fireproof floor would the combination of mill and kiln under one roof become the norm, and well established by the 19th century. Kiln tiles varied in size, some being about twelve inches square for ease of laying, although some were considerably smaller, and they had to be thick enough to support the person shovelling the drying grain to turn it, grain depth being from four to five inches.

To prevent blockage of the perforations, the holes tapered outwards to larger holes underneath. Iron plates, probably more durable, were said to be preferable to tiles as they retained the heat better, and were chosen for Castle Mill, Quernmore. Fuels for the kiln fire varied down the centuries, ranging from peat, oat husks and chaff, wood, to coke and anthracite.

No chapter on waterpower technology could be considered complete without some mention of the role played by the water turbine.

The steam engine had become established as the main prime mover in industry by the early 1800’s in Britain, which had an abundance of cheap coal, and therefore there was no urgent incentive to find a better method of harnessing water power. In parts of France, where the potential water power resources far exceeded that of Britain, the 55. The Whalley Abbey purchase of hair cloth is in "The Whalley Abbey Bursars' Account for 1520" by O Ashmore in Transactions of the History Society for Lancashire and Cheshire. Vol.113 (1962), p.68.

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need for a water driven prime mover suitable for generating far greater power than the conventional water wheel, led to the Societie d' Encouragement pour L'industrie Nationale offering a prize of 6,000 francs to the inventor of a suitable machine. The prize was awarded to Benoit Fournyron in 1827 for his water turbine which was soon taken up in the United States for development.

On the 14th December 1850, an Irishman, James Thompson, professor of Queen's College, Belfast, was granted a patent for what he called his "vortex" turbine, in that the water moved inwards through the wheel or runner of the machine in a continuos spiral course. Basically it comprised a small wheel having curved blades, covered by a shroud and connected to a driving shaft. Surrounding the wheel were four guide blades which were originally fixed but later they were made moveable to control the water flow. The vortex turbine had a great advantage over the waterwheel in that it was small, had an efficiency of 70 to 75 %, and could work on any head of water from 3 to 300 feet and more. The first to be installed in England was a 40 h.p. one under a head of 20 feet at a paper mill at Burneside, north of Kendal.

It was at Halfpenny Mill in the Parish of Stainton, Kendal, that Henry Williamson, eldest son of a linen draper, began an agricultural machinery manufacturing business in 1853. Henry was soon joined by his brother William, and in July 1856, a move was made to Kendal into the then redundant canal warehouses (re-named The Canal Iron Works) which had been built for the opening of the Lancaster Canal to Kendal in 1819.

Professor Thompson was to give the Williamson brothers licence to manufacture his vortex turbine, the order for turbine No. 1 being entered on the 17th August 1856. It was a vertical shaft type designed for 5 h.p. under a head of 30 feet to run at 300 revolutions per minute, and was fitted at Holmescales Farm, Old Hutton, near Kendal, where it worked for over a hundred years. It now resides in the museum of Lakeland Life and Industry at Abbott Hall, Kendal.

The Williamson brothers were at Canal Iron Works from 1856 until 1881, where they regarded water turbines as their top prestige line alongside steam engines and boilers. In 1882 Gilbert Gilkes bought the business to concentrate on turbine manufacture, making a number of impulse turbines mainly for tea estates in Ceylon where water heads were high and mountain stream flows small. Gilkes was also to produce low head turbines and a small number of pelton wheels.

In December, 1894, the Company registered as a Limited Liability Company, following which Gilbert Gilkes and Co. Ltd met the growing market for private house electric light plant, particularly in Scotland and Wales, where water power was abundant. During the First World War, the firm made a lot of miscellaneous war material, and in the following inter-war years much development in turbine and pump design was carried out. At the outbreak of the Second World War an order was received for a 2,000 h.p. pelton wheel for Bolivia.

Quite a number of turbines were to be installed in the North West Mills, the dates and name of manufacturer in the majority of cases being unknown at the present level of research. However, the following is a selection:- Thurnham Mill (corn), turbine installed after 1924, Scorton Mill, (cotton spinning); Cleveley Mill, (corn); Low Mill, Halton, turbine by Helmes; Forge Bank Mill, Halton, Low Mill, Caton; Willow Mill, Caton, turbine by Gilkes , c1900.

In some establishments when more power was required, small steam engine plants were installed, but in comparison to the performance of the water turbine they were most uneconomic and never appeared in substantial numbers.

19

A SELECTION OF SITES AND THEIR INDUSTRY.

BARTON CORN MILL, (SD 525 376).

Since its closure in the second half of the 1940s, the Barton site has undergone an almost complete transformation due to modern day developments. Its machinery and most of the waterwheel went in the 1960s and the construction of the M6 was responsible for the severance of its half mile long headrace. In 1979 work began to remove the top storey of the three storey mill for conversion into a private dwelling, however, today a close inspection of the mill building and site may still reveal some interesting evidence of its industrial past.56

To the rear of the mill, the channel of the half mile in length and long since severed by the M6, may still be traced, with its overflow sluice mechanism used in times of flash flood when the water could be diverted back to Barton Brook. This protected the final portion of the headrace and the elongated mill dam which was sited immediately at the back of the mill, which when full, apparently provided about three hours of work. . If the dam had been exhausted early in the day during a dry spell, it would be late evening before enough water was available to turn the wheel. So the miller’s daily routine was to some extent dependent upon the weather. At the point where the mill dam reached the building there was the internal wheelhouse, transverse to the long axis of the mill and the exit is still discernible at the front even though the opening has been blocked in. Not far away lies a runner millstone and close by railings are the only indicator of where the tailrace passed under Barton Lane on its way back to the brook some seventy metres distance. Looking back at the front of the mill, to the right of the wheelhouse was the drying kiln; with its projecting gable to the left of the main body of the building.

Most of the machinery and the wheel, apart from its axle, were removed during the 1960s, and in 1979, work began to convert the three storey mill into a two storey private dwelling. Even though the mill was grade III listed, and dated as a re-build of 1832, with a reliable datestone of 1671 incorporated into its south-eastern gable, the listed status was cancelled to allow the removal of the upper storey.

In 1979 when the alterations were being carried out, Peter Day, a local man, and a professional archaeologist, began a detailed survey of the mill and site.57 Amongst the gutted walls and dismantled floors was found evidence of over six phases of alteration and re-build.

The remains of five millstones were found, two having been set vertical in the outside front wall to project just above floor level; another had been used as a threshold. Four datestones were recorded,58 two of these were in situ, and there was building date graffiti on the stone rebuilding phase. On the top storey of the brick structure of 1832, the mostly wooden sack hoist mechanism, survived, as did the waterwheels axle, still in situ in the wheel house. This axle was removed and dumped near the old shippon and stable block at the south-eastern end of the site, and at the time of writing it is awaiting re-erection to a permanent site outside the village hall.

Day’s survey also recorded that the entrance to the integral drying kiln had been bricked up and its interior filled in, and amongst the many photographs taken were

56. Edwards B.J.N. Barton Mill. L.A.B. Vol 7, No1, March 1981.

57. A ref to Days paper or report in here.

58. Details of these dates initials etc

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some of the fuel (possibly coke or coal) charging hole and flue opening. A series of kiln tiles were found and at SD 530 380, the large stone built dam on Barton Brook had been mostly dismantled to restore a free flow of water in the brook channel.

Barton vill is mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086/7 but not the mill. In 1212 the Mense Lordship was held by William de Clifton, and in 1323 a mortgage of the manor of Barton was made by John de Barton. Under the Bartons, the Halsall family became responsible for the mense lordship, and after approximately three hundred and fifty years of Barton family rule, the lordship passed into the Shuttleworth family.

However, the earliest record of a mill in Barton was in the first part of the 13th century, and although the reference does not specify a watermill, it most likely was, as watermills were more common than windmills at this time. A document of Estate property in 1575 does mention a watermill and a windmill in Barton, but the windmill is not listed in 1569 or in 1604.

On the 1st September, 1713, a lease for Barton Mill was made by Richard Shuttleworth to John Holiday (or Holliday) of Barton, a miller. The lease for twenty one years at five pounds ten shillings per year listed the following:-"Water corn mill and 2 drying kilns, all under one roof at Barton with the 'soaken fall or mulcture thereof' and 'twelve picks, twelve inches of greet in both millstones, a chisell and gouge, an iron crow, hammer and a half bushell, an aughendal, three arks, three chists, a dust sive, a meal sive, a peck, an old bed and bolster, a pair of tongs, a scutle, a riddle, and a fan made new to go by water." Witness:- T Sudell, William Cardwell, seal.

A pick was a pointed tool used in stone dressing, an ark a grain storing bin, and the fan a device in which rejected coarse stuff was passed before returning to the stones for grinding.

William Holiday was the miller in 1776, and on the 7th May of that year was in trouble with the Manor Court for not repairing his part of the lane at the mill as part of his tenure. He was given until the 24th June to put matters right, otherwise he would be fined thirty shillings. Interestingly, on the 17th August, an agreement to lease the mill, its drying kiln, closes (fields), plus the lane, was made to “John Gardiner of Billsboro”, late in the tenure of William Holliday, at £55 per year.

In 1777 and up to c1802, John Gardner (assumed to be the same as in 1776) and Henry Blacow were the tenants at the mill. William Cardwell being the tenant in 1804 and 1805, deceased in 1806. From this date the mill was to have a number of tenants. The Census Return for 1841 shows that James Taylor, aged 55 was at Barton Mill with his family and an eleven year old apprentice, Richard Storer. James was still at Barton in 1851, and in 1861 Richard Woods, aged 53, who had been born in Chipping a few miles away was listed as the miller.

In 1833 James Shuttleworth had sold the manor to George Jacson of Preston, a member of the Shorrocks, Jacson and Company cotton manufacturing firm.

When George Jacson, died, his son Charles Roger became heir to the Barton Manor Estate and following his death his widow left Barton, the estate being divided into lots and sold by auction in June 1899. Barton Mill, its mill house, shippon and stable block were purchased by a Mr Wallbank whose son, George, was to be the last miller at Barton. His son remembers his father (George) dressing the stones and recalled the time when the tailrace had to be cleared of debris after storm conditions.. Part of the mill machinery was known as a "crusher" for making crushed oats, and a "mixer" for mixing oats and wheat to produce cattle feed. (Crushed oats were mixed with the wheat and Palm Kernel Cake, brought in from Liverpool). Poultry feed was also made on the site.

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The waterwheel was a high breast type 4.18 metres in diameter, having wooden buckets and spokes, and an iron shaft of cruciform section. It also ran a generator which charged up a row of batteries to feed the mill house, via an overhead line across the lane, carrying c100 volts.

In the spring of 1988, the millers house opposite the mill underwent some restoration, and the removal of its outside rendering to reveal a structure of hand-made brick within which had been made numerous alterations. Windows and a doorway had been bricked up, and a well-worn stone threshold was found.

CATSHAW FACTORY, CATSHAW BOTTOM IN OVER WYRESDALE.

This ruined factory site is at SD556533 on the west side of Cam Brook, which after rising high on Catshaw Fell, flows into the River Wyre just below the Abbeystead Reservoir. The site is best explored during the winter months when the vegetation which is colonising the area has died back.

The history of this mill in Over Wyresdale once part of the Catshaw Vaccary (owned in 1717 by John Hathornthwaite) is somewhat complicated, and a full account would really serve no purpose with regard to the Catshaw Factory.59 In the mid 18th. century the Catshaw Estate was bought by a family of flax merchants and ropers from nearby Garstang, evidence of this being contained in the 1776 Will of one John Brown. The Will was proved in 1783, with John leaving his son William his one third share in his messuage and tenement at Catshaw, directing him to pay an annuity of £30 to Mrs Singleton, widow of the late John Hathornthwaite, son of the John Hathornthwaite of 1717.

The Brown family added to their 200 acres at Catshaw by purchasing a further 40 acres holding in Catshaw Bottom, drained by a good stream, and therefore seen to have potential for a textile mill.

The earliest reference to the first factory was in insurance records of the Royal Exchange for December 14th 1784, when James Brown and Company of Garstang insured the building for £600 and "utensils of trade" for £900, brothers Thomas and William being partners. By 1785, trouble had arisen regarding the use of the Cam Brook for power, and the company was forced to seek water power facilities elsewhere which they found three miles away high up in Black Clough. A leat was dug to descend 193 feet in just over three miles to feed a wheel eighteen feet in diameter and six feet in width. Today this leat and two mill ponds are the most visible relics of Catshaw Factory. Agreements were made between the mill owners and the owners of the land through which the feed water passed, and a lease beginning in October 1785 secured a supply of water for seven years with a renewal option, the yearly rent being £20. It was for one wheel only and strictly for a mill to work cotton and worsted.

The first mention of a cotton spinner at Catshaw is in the Freemen of Lancaster Rolls for 1785-86, "William Smith, cotton spinner, son of John Smith of Winmarleigh, husbandman."

59. See Buckly P, Con 1993 and Con 1994.

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In November 1788, however, the new mill was up for sale. Three stories high, sixty three feet in length by twenty feet wide, and the dimensions between the floors was nine feet, it contained eight spinning frames of sixty spindles each with necessary machinery and utensils. There were eleven new dwelling houses, and the whole of the buildings were offered on a lease for fifty seven years on a yearly rent of six pounds fourteen shillings.

However, there were no buyers and the Browns continued to work the mill which was again for sale in January 1795. The sale catalogue listed a waterwheel eighteen feet and two inches high and six feet wide with twenty four feet fall of water, along with ten new spinning frames of sixty spindles each, five turning and six carding engines, with drawing and roving engines as well as other machinery and utensils. Fifteen newly built workers dwelling houses were also available.

The year 1797 was a bad year for the cotton trade with many bankruptcies, and the Catshaw Factory had been stopped between 1794 and 1797, but after work had recommenced it was again up for peremptory sale, this time in November 1800. The Catshaw Factory was eventually sold by auction at the Kings Arms, Lancaster on December 22nd, 1826. By this time a new waterwheel twenty one feet in diameter had been installed and there was an indication that perhaps a refit had taken place regarding machinery since the sale of 1800.

The founders of the mill had all died by 1826, but the Brown family still retained an interest in the mill certainly until 1832, with the business probably working intermittently from 1797. Its decline was not due to a shortage of labour or the remoteness of the factory, because in the 1840's the decision was taken to erect a new mill, the dimensions of the old mill being unable to accommodate a great expansion in machinery. A larger wheel was also installed, fed from an extended system of mill ponds.

The new mill opened in August 1847 was seventy feet by twenty feet, including the wheel pit into which was fitted an enormous water wheel aptly named "The Leviathan". This wheel was made by Joseph Clayton of Preston,60 and had a circumference of 150 feet 3 inches and was 7 feet broad.

The height of the new mill is unknown but it had thirty six inch wide walls which would be strong enough to support five stories. Cast iron columns and joists were used only on the ground floor, an arrangement that would provide some fire proofing. New equipment on the site was installed to produce coal-gas for lighting in the new factory, and the old mill was used as a warehouse.

The new owner was John Morgan. The 1851 Census Returns show that at Catshaw House lived Ralph Lowe, "cotton manufacturer", along with his wife and six children, all born in Preston. Lowe employed twelve men, nineteen women, nine boys thirteen girls and eight outdoor labourers. Catshaw had a total population of seventy two, excluding the farms, and there were more cotton workers living nearby.

On April 19th 1856, the Lancaster Gazette recorded:- "Destruction by fire of Catshaw Mill, Over Wyresdale." About midnight on Wednesday, April 16th flames were seen issuing from the side windows of the cotton mill which then belonged to Messrs Joseph Clayton and Son. The fire raged for about two hours when the roof and floors fell in causing a total wreck of the mill.

60. The Preston foundry had been established in 1835 by Joseph Clayton, and was to specialise in steam boilers and engines and gas apparatus.

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The mill was not rebuilt, and the Census Returns for 1861 do not list any cotton trades at Catshaw. Nine houses were listed as inhabited in 1861 and a decade later ten houses were empty, the only occupants of Catshaw House being William Cragg and his wife Alice, both in their seventies. In 1881 the house was the home of a gamekeeper who had died by 1891, his widow staying on as caretaker.

The mill hamlet went into decay with the building stone gradually taken away for building elsewhere and the site reverting to a natural overgrown state.

DOLPHINHOLME WORSTED MILL IN NETHER WYRESDALE.

Dolphinholme Mill is one of a number of examples where a corn mill site was developed into a factory working textiles, and a site that was to boast having the first worsted spinning factory in the World, the largest waterwheel in England, and arguably the first textile mill to be lit by gas.61

Dolphinholme, until almost the end of the 18th century was just a hamlet, having a farm, a corn mill and the large house named Wyresdale, the seat of the Fenton-Cawthorne family, Lords of Wyresdale. A special commission by the Duchy of Lancaster in 1588 enquiring into the mills on the river Wyre had noted that the highest weir on the river was at Dolphinholme giving a head of water with the greatest flow to the cornmill.

Thomas Edmondson, a Lancaster ironmonger, looking for outlets for his capital bought Dolphinholme corn mill and site from the Duke of Hamilton of Ashton Hall in 1784. This was the corn mill mentioned as working in 1604-5 when John Parkinson had the tenancy under Lord Gerrard. Edmondson, along with two other Lancaster men, Addison and Satterthwaite, began a worsted spinning mill, after taking out a lease for the land and the water rights which was to run for sixty one years. The first venture, working on two Arkwright type frames and receiving power from the old corn mill wheel soon fell victim to mother nature at her worst. The mill had its weir below Damas Ghyll, upstream from the bridge on the Wyre, and on the 25th July 1787 the weir was breached by a great flood. The 10th August saw the greatest flood in memory for the area, the Wyre washing out the weir and also the factory weir fender mouth.62 On the 20th October, the final straw came, an even greater flood, washing away the bridges at Lee, Abbeystead and Storrs, and damaging those at Dolphinholme and Street. Later, on the 2nd December, a hole was made under the factory weir , stopping production for two days. This business venture had started on a poor footing. The business produced inferior goods from its crude machinery resulting in the concern being unprofitable and the partners quarrelling. Closure came in May 1794.

The firm was dissolved and early in 1795 when a new company took over the lease at £500 per year. A Lancaster merchant, Thomas Hinde was the main financier, the other partners being his son William and two others, Hadwen and Patchett. The old machinery, consisting of four water frames with only four to six spindles each, was bought at valuation and then disposed of to be replaced by ones of improved construction and design. Robert Clarkson was engaged to build a new weir of wood, located three quarters of a mile above the factory, at a cost of £300. A new factory building was also erected, single storey and about seventy yards long by thirty yards wide to accommodate fifteen new enlarged frames, and to employ two hundred people. Wool to the value of £7,000 was purchased, and in the valley near the factory, homes were built to let at one shilling and six pence per week. On the brow of the hill, a short distance from the factory more houses were built and made available to workers at one 61. Halls, History of Dophinholme.

62. Cragg Timothy, Memoranda Book, 1698 - 1816, L.R.O. DDX 760.

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shilling and three pence per week. A building to be used as a shop was opened and rented at £10 per annum.

In January 1797 the business appears to have been prospering and needing more workers, so fourteen more houses were projected. The new factory had been erected in 1795 with the taking on of the new lease to September of the same year when spinning began.

The new headrace, no mean civil engineering work which had involved the blasting of stone, was to provide a head of water to drive a large wheel in a factory now built on a new site well clear of the river. The wheel, sixty-eight and a half feet in diameter and twelve feet in breath, of cast iron and hornbeam, had been constructed by Walkers of Frog Lane Wigan. It was to be the tallest in Britain, with the exception of the Laxey Wheel on the Isle of Man of a much later date, but the Dolphinholme wheel was twice as wide, and on a full water supply generated about two hundred horse power. Unfortunately, there is no firm evidence to date as to its type. Those who remembered seeing it in ruins appear to described an undershot type, but examination of the site indicated that there was insufficient height for the water to clear the wheel, and it would seem almost certain that it was a high breast.

Expansion of the mill and business meant that more housing was needed resulting in two new rows, one of two storey, the other of three storey, being built on the highway above the village and named Corless Cottages. The land having been taken from an agricultural holding close by, named Corless Farm. Between each row of cottages was a privy block complete with passageways for emptying purposes, and each of the thirty two houses had two families. In August, 1797 a stone weir was constructed to replace the old wooded structure, , in order to improve the water supply, , in order to improve the water supply, and by the end of November the mill was spinning night and day, the mill workers being paid eleven pence to one shilling per pound weight of wool spun.

The success of the firm lay behind the Hinde family who were providing the capital, along with the Derhams who were technicians, and Patchett who was the salesman. Samuel, William and Thomas Hinde were the sons of Thomas Hinde, Mayor of Lancaster in 1770 and 1778, a Lancaster merchant engaged in the West Indies trade. Samuel and William were the proprietors of the Dolphinholme factory while Thomas continued his father's business as a wine merchant. The Derehams were of humbler stock, with William Dereham using a warehouse in Lancaster for the sale of worsted, linen and twine. He was engaged in the "putting-out" domestic system, giving out the raw material and receiving it back as yarn and then disposing this to hand-loom weavers. His son, Thomas was manager of the Hinde venture at Dolphinholme, dying in 1822 but not before training his son James to be his successor. After 1822 James went into partnership with the Hindes, the firm becoming Hindes and Dereham. James lived in what is still called, "Dereham House" today the end one of the larger houses attached to the proprietors house, now called Old Mill House. When the Hindes vacated this house called "Undercroft" the Derhams moved into it.(photo of 1868??)

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THE CATON MILLS.

The first mills recorded in Caton were the medieval corn and fulling mills founded and operated by either the monks of Cockersands Abbey or the Gernets’ Seigniorial Lords of Township in the thirteenth century. All traces of these early mills have gone, but, it is thought that Towd, Crossgill and Forge Mills might have been the original medieval mill sites.

This premise is supported by the fact that the Crossgill and Forge mills are the only ones situated on the east bank of the Artle Beck, all the others, which are presumed to post date them, have been built on the western bank and have always been dependent on the water system that originally fed what became Forge Mill. There is documentary evidence but no maps or structures existing for the medieval period “mills” and so most of the history of this period has been omitted.63

Today, though the head race that supplies the water to Forge Mill is taken across the Artle Beck via a launder and into the head race down to the other three sites of Rumble Row, Willow and Low Mills. There was anther mill recorded in the Township the “Tow or Tow’d Mill,” about which there is little information. This mill, a bank type, was built on the edge of the River Lune flood terrace, and was fed directly from the Artle Beck via a weir. All that remains today are traces of the headrace and the filled pond. Certain characteristics about its location and the method of supplying it with water, i.e. directly from Artle Beck, this might suggest an early medieval date for this mills foundation date.

There is evidence of a water powered mill at Tongue Moor, now called Littledale Hall at SD 568 621. This site has a much altered industrial type building that is now converted to a house and garages, on the beck-side between the hall and the older farmhouse.

The present building is stone and slate, with four storeys, large windows, a possible capped chimney and access on the ground floor on the beck side in two places, but no yard or roadway connecting. Upstream there is a large dam, now dry, and traces of a head race, but most of this has been eroded away by the beck, (though some of these works were still to be seen and recorded by Robert Moss a local amateur historian in the early 1950's). Thos Procter's will of Tongue Moor dated 1677, lists in the inventory "woode in ye mill dame" and "things in ye mille" while other items refer to "wools" and "birling", so it could have been working textiles or fulling. Later the site is recorded briefly as a bobbin mill, then an in the early twentieth century as an estate sawmill.

Crossgill Bobbin Mill is the next mill downstream, at SD 558 623. The early history of this site is not known, but it may well be the site of a medieval corn or fulling mill. It is listed as a corn mill in 1780. The last miller was William Bibby who was recorded in the landowner’s notebook, one Mr Faithwaite, on 13th Aug. 1835 as paying 5 pounds rent of the mill. The site was bought with the rest of Faithwaite estates in Littledale by Rev. John Dodson in 1843, who leased it out.

Once there were three buildings on the site, a small dwelling and the three storied stone and slate mill. This initially had an internally situated breast shot wheel fed from a wide-ponded headrace supplied from a weir just below Fostal Bridge. A large open sided coppice wood shed with round pillars and a stone slate roof, built c1840 for the bobbin operations adjoins the mill. Later during the bobbin manufacturing period a water turbine was fitted, which was still in use when the mill was converted to a saw mill after 1890. The site was sold in 1945 as ‘a saw mill with workshop and six bay timber shed.’ (See Fig?? Sale notice) 63. Hudson, P.J. & Price J. The Mills on Artle Beck, Caton. In Archive Vol 7, 1995.

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In about 1850 the bobbin mill was run by one Jonathan Walling, who is listed in the 1851 Census at nearby Birkett House, he ran the mill with over a dozen "apprentices" who all lived in. In 1866 George Savage made bobbins there, but the mill was closed by 1893 and converted to a saw mill. It was offered for sale as part of Littledale Hall Estate at the Alexandra Hotel Lancaster 8th June 1945.

The site was taken over by the Scouts some 20 years ago and the mill has since been taken down to its foundations. The short tail race survives, but the ponded race is filled and the weir has gone. The only surviving building is the coppice shed which is now renovated and re-roofed with Welsh slates. (See Fig ?? Slide 023)

GRESGARTH MILL.

The Gresgarth Corn Mill at SD 532 632, has, like so many early date water powered corn mills, something of a mystery about it. The first mill is presumed to have been built by the Curwens when the Caton Manor was divided in the early fourteenth century. Nicholas Curwen, of Girsgarth (Gresgarth), who’s will was proved in 1633 was the last of the Curwen line in Caton and upon his death the estate and mill passed to the Riddells of Swinburn Castle. Later the estate was purchased by Abraham Rawlinson, from the Furness area, who set up Caton Forge Mill in 1727 just downstream from the Gresgarth Corn Mill site.

The water for the present building was always taken from the Artle Beck and returned well above the bottom weir which adjoins the Hall on its north gable end, which provides water for the downstream mills.

This present mill building was new-built or re-built as a corn mill and operated as such from c1780 until after 1825. In 1825 Baines Directory records Thomas Askew as farmer and miller, Gresgarth Mills.

Jonathan Binns a land surveyor, in his diary (Jan 20th 1832) writes, "Taking levels of a mill race at Grassyard (Caton) for T. Edmondson Esq." This is possibly a reference to the water system being repaired, for in 1843 the building was recorded in use as a threshing mill for the estate.

The present building is two storied, built of local stone and slate with gothic style windows and has a wheel pit and kiln extant but no machinery. The sluice is intact but silted up. Still attached is a long ponded type headrace fed by a large earthenware pipe taking water from a weir on Artle Beck. The building which has been renovated several times, last one was after a fire some 8 years ago, now houses the Gresgarth estate saw mill and workshops. (See Fig ?? Slide 1418).

FORGE MILL.

Forge Mill is the third mill and the last one, above the village which is situated on the east bank of Artle Beck and a possible site for one of Caton’s medieval corn or fulling mills. It appears to have been one of the corn mills mentioned in the Cockersands Abbey land grants in the mid thirteenth century, and was possibly the mill that was mentioned when the moiety of Caton land was divided into Town End and Brookhouse in the fourteenth century.

It is mentioned in the Court Rolls of Henry 8 10/35, that "Margaret and Islep Jepson and Thomas Ashton, William Redmayne and Will Straiker, Mayor of Lancaster, hold titles to a mill and lands in Caton". Also it may have been the mill referred to in the will of Thomas Hathornthwaite in 1685.

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This old mill site was probably re-built in the early seventeenth century and was altered to operate as a forge by Abraham Rawlinson in 1727. The premises were only part freehold, the residue being held on a 99 year lease from William Bradshaw of Halton Hall, and 50 shillings per year ground rent was paid in an agreement dated 14th Feb. 1761. The forge was closed and the building converted to a textile mill in 1796 by the Hodgsons of Caton.

Water for the mill was taken off Artle Beck at a weir in the grounds of Gresgarth Hall and via a head race was fed into a coffer dam to give a 16 foot fall, providing water to a high breast wheel 4ft wide and 11 ft diameter ( later replaced with a wheel of about 16 ft diameter). The tail-race goes under the mill and is culverted in the yard and road and taken across Artle Beck on a metal launder that replaced an earlier wooden one. The water still flows through this system and feeds water into the headrace to the three other downstream mill sites. (See Fig?? Col photo 3A)

Most of the textile mill building is extant, is long, narrow, four storied, built in stone and has a slate roof. The eastern half being the oldest, and a remnant of the forge still retaining its arched wheel house entrance as a feature in the housing conversion. (See Fig?? Col photo 1A). The 1796 extension was also four stories. It was advertised for sale in 1825 and Sept. 1826, as Forge Mill, a flax and tow mill in Caton, with a building 24 x 63 feet, with 10 cottages, a house, (see Fig ?? Old Photo c1900) and roving and spinning frames. After 1828 the building was extended westwards and by 1843 the engine house had been added, this still has the round topped windows.

A history of industrial use, initially a possible medieval corn or fulling mill. Converted to an Iron Forge in 1727 worked as such to c1796. Changed to cottons up to c1804 and worked later silk with water frames. In 1809-1829 it was changed to flax and from 1829-1864 cottons again with added steam power. The site was operated by Joseph Wright of Stockport in 1850's with two weaving sheds, for combing and spinning cottons. (See Fig ?? Old photo c1900 of site from south), and in 1869 it was converted to produce bobbins and worked these until it closed for good in 1931.

The mill complex is now converted to housing with few of the original interior features surviving except a stone spiral staircase and some cast iron pillars. The chimney has gone and a section just to the west of the wheel pit housing has been taken down. In the adjoining cottages, which were once eight back-to-back workers dwellings, which have recently been re-fronted and converted to two larger houses, , the rear of the most northerly one still has traces of some 17th century windows, as is presumed to be a survival of part of the corn mill period of working. (See Col photo Fig 2A).

RUMBLE ROW MILLThe water that passes over the launder on exit from Forge Mill ran down into a dam on the west bank of Artle Beck that provided water storage for the Rumble Row Mill at SD 533 640, a mill presumed to be of eighteenth century date. All traces of this mill have gone and the site is under the new school building and several new houses. All that remains is the badly damaged head race, and fragments of stone in the beck. It may have been built as a cotton mill or silk mill, being known to have been worked in the mid nineteenth century by William Thompson of Galgate as a silk mill, but later converted to bobbins.

WILLOW MILL

This mill at SD 530 664, was originally built to grind corn, but it is not known when. The older corn mill building remains can still be seen at the east end, attached to the extended building of the late eighteenth century. (See Fig?? Col photo 4A)

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The new extensions to the corn mill building and conversion into industrial use was made by the Hodgsons of Caton in 1788. First used by Hodgsons and Cooper of Liverpool for cottons, it was then leased as a flax mill; worked silk from 1814 to 1861, and was then converted into a bobbin mill.

This mill recorded in a sale document dated 14th March 1795 was 197 ft long and 25 ft wide, with four storeys, stone built with a flag roof. It has a bell tower on the west, but was not fireproofed. It had a 15ft. 6", and 5ft. 7" wide, 20h.p. wheel with a 14.5ft fall set centrally under the new building. (See Fig?? Price, Plan fig 19) The additional buildings, which were not fireproofed, made it one of the largest mills in the area, with 10,000 square feet of floor space.(See Fig ??Price, T.R. Lofts drawings) Hodgsons had to sell it, along with 24 workers’ cottages and the aforementioned Forge Mill when they got into financial difficulties in 1804. Adjacent is the former silk warehouse, now a youth club, while across in Copy Lane is the apprentice house. The mill manager lived at Greenfield House.

The water supply system was intact until the premises were converted into industrial units in 1988, though the pond had been drained. The water wheel that drove the old corn mill was moved from its position on the east end, and a larger 16 foot wheel was set in a central wheel pit, fed from a new outlet and sluice out of the north-west corner of the enlarged dam, probably in 1788.(see Fig ?? col photo A5) Later in the early nineteenth century an auxiliary steam engine was installed and the square chimney and new boiler/engine house added to the north-east wall. In c1900 the water-wheel was replaced by a Gilkes turbine.

William Haresnape ran the site as a bobbin mill from c1861, until it was taken over by Thomas Wildman in 1872 and it remained in this family until they closed it down in 1973. In the later years of occupation Wildman produced brush heads. The last occupants of the mill were Millards Surgical until it closed for conversion in 1986. (See Fig ??. Slide No 1313).

The water from under Willow Mill runs into a culvert and down through the village where it is exposed near the old fish stones on the main roadside. It is culverted under the road and then remains open down to the dam at Low Mill.

LOW MILL.

The last and what many consider the finest mill on this system is the Low Mill, at SD 527 649. A mill built on a greenfield site in c1784 by the Hodgsons who owned a farm there. It was built for spinning cotton, using Arkwright frames, but was up for sale with Forge Mill in 1814 when Hodgsons were bankrupt. It was advertised in the Lancaster Gazette as follows:

“56 carding engines, 7 drawing and roving frames, 4 stretching frames, 366 spindles, 38 water spinning frames, 4 throstle frames, 2684 spindles, winding and warping mills etc, 2 water wheels, 1 steam engine of 10 hp, by Boulton and Watt, Water power fall is 40ft.”

The site was eventually transferred to the Greg’s of Styal in c1817, who installed a 20 h.p. Boulton and Watt steam engine, modified the machinery and installed power looms after 1824 and also equipped it with gas lighting. The building caught fire on December 10th 1837, and was badly damaged but re-built. In addition to its two water wheels, (the larger being a 25ft dia overshot), a larger steam engine was installed in 1838. The mill was by now four storeys with an attic and had a water tower and hoist on its east end. On the site there was an apprentice house and a managers house. A 75 h.p. water turbine by Gilkes of Kendal was installed in about 1864, replacing the two water wheels. (See Fig?? And old photo of c1902) The remains of this or a similar turbine now stands

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as an ornament in the car park of the converted site.(see Fig ?? col photo A6) In 1908 the mill was operating with two steam engines of 160 and 185 h.p. respectively with a large Lancashire Boiler house.

From 1864 the site was operated by Storey Bros. for carding and spinning but this stopped in 1974 when the site was used as a warehouse and small workshops. Abandoned and derelict in 1986 until most of it was recently converted to housing. The mill dam is also retained and is used as a trout fishery(See fig ?? col photo A7).

Freckleton Mill.

Freckleton Corn Mill situated on the Dow Brook, has a long history and is one of the more interesting in the district as it was a tide mill. A dedicated tide mill is one that relies solely on the influx of the tidal river water to fill its dam twice a day, so this water could be used at low water to drive the water wheel. But Freckleton was not totally dependant on the tide for its power, as it also used the water which flowed down Dow Brook. This water was also stored in a dam to be used when the tidal water had gone.

There was a water mill at Freckleton from the 12th.c to the early 20th.c. The date of the first mill was mid-twelfth century and it was possibly not quite on the same site as the later mill, which was newly built after 1609. The old mill site might well have been at the confluence of the Dow and Proud Brooks in order to gain maximum advantage of both streams waters to supplement the tide water.

There is very little information on this early water mill sited in a manor held by the Earl of Lincoln, but it is certain that the tenant, or holder of the mulcture in 1189 was Roger de Freckleton. Nothing else is known, so we do not have any information on its water supply, type or design.

The first reliable information appears in 1427 when the water corn mill at Freckleton is mentioned as being in the possession of “William Hodeliston” (Huddleston).64 Huddlestons were the family who held the mill rights until the manor was sold off to the Earl of Derby in 1496. The mill and water rights were mentioned in a dispute of 1427 between Hodeliston and the Lord of the Manor of Newton. Newton adjoins the land from which the mill water was taken and is to the east of the mill race. This dispute appears to have been settled by an amicable agreement with both sides able to use the fresh water coming down both the Dow and Proud Brooks. The water was shared three days and three night each during the dry months so it could be used for both the mill, i.e. filling the dams, and for agriculture, e.g. watering cattle, on the adjoining marshlands. To accommodate this works were constructed with a weir and sluice on the Dow and a cut into the Proud, by now called Middle Pool, in its extents downstream of the new cutting.

It was not recorded if these new arrangements allowed the mill to carry on and prosper, for there is a one hundred year gap in the record before we learn anything else in 1609. In 1609 an indenture of demise is agreed for a water mill between the Earl of Derby and Arthur Sharples of Freckleton. The document does not mention the old mill and clearly states that this was for a new mill that was to be built on a “Parcell of the waste or common of Freckleton neere unto a place commonly caled the outelande hill”, ...and to have use of the water course falling ...between Freckleton and Newton.... and to erect fences, build a new dam, dams and fludegates .... and other new works,.... a house and kiln and any rooms necessary for operating said mill... etc.” The agreement was for 80 years and rent was fixed at 14 shillings per annum. At this low rent it appears that Sharples had agreed to build the mill at his own expense, and

64. Walker, R. Freckleton Water Mill, 1942.

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this was reflected in later events when he got into debt and owed £103, which was redeemed in 1619 by John, one of his sons.

The agreement also provided for moving the new mill to another site if the first site was not suitable, and Sharples could also alter the water supply arrangements if needs be. There was no mention of the right to use the tidal river water, nor did it include any of the older clauses appertaining to the joint water rights etc.

The contents of this agreement make no mention of the old mill, and the new arrangements so carefully built into the agreement strongly suggest that this was a new construction on a new and unproven site.

When the new mill was built it was run by the Sharples family. In 1619 Arthur Sharples granted the profits of the “...water mylne and kilne...” to his son John if he paid off some of his fathers debts, debts that we assume were accrued in meeting the building costs of the new mill. Later, John also took over the lease and tenanted out the mill, which passed to his eldest son George. When the latter died in 1691 his son George II, takes over, still under the rights agreed with the Derby Estates. By this time the terms of the original indenture of 1609, that of 80 years, had run out and we presume that a new short lease had been agreed before George II inherited, for in 1700 George was corresponding with the Derby Estates Commissioners about re-negotiating yet another new lease based on two lives. Information about this and other activities connected with the Freckleton water mill have survived in a series of letters between George II and his cousin Richard Harrison, Vicar of Poulton, who appears to be handling the affairs of the Sharples’ Freckleton Estates during George’s absence when carrying out his duties as a customs officer in Bristol.

The letters allow us to build up a picture of how the mill and wheel was constructed and who was involved in the working. They also mention damage and repairs to the windmill in Freckleton, which was also in the hands of the Sharples family c1700. In June 1700 the miller changes from Cropper to Colbron of Freckleton. At this date the water mill appears to have been neglected or misused and was in a poor state of repair. A survey was carried out by an independent millwright, a Mr Hoggarth, who was once the miller at a Mr Heskets’ mill, who suggested taking the wheel and shaft out and repairing it by renewing the wooden arms and bucket boards. Cousin Harrison began to look around locally for wood to make the repairs. In May, 1701 Harrison laid wood down to season it ready for use in repairing the wheel arms, he also bought 2,000 bricks which were later used to construct a new wall to replace the wooden board fabric, (this was the south end of the building). However, in a letter dated Sept. 1701 Harrison states that he has still not managed to agree the terms of the new lease from Lord Derby’s Commissioners and advises it to be unwise to do any repairs to the water mill until the lease has been renewed. We must presume that some work had already been done and that the new lease was agreed later that month, as the next letter in October states that Harrison has inspected the works at the mill which have been carried out by one Edward Swartbreck, (Swarbrick) and an unnamed millwright, and states it will be finished that week. The following month someone was employed to view and assess the works, who apparently agreed the costs of the repairers especially in view of the fact that “it had been so much out of order”.

George Sharples died before 1715 and the new lease must have been transferred to his heirs and the family carried on as holders of the Freckleton Estate and the mills through to the 19th century. In c1810, James Sharples of Freckleton, referred to as the miller, had improved the works, put in a new sluice or weir which had impeded the water flow down the “old Cutting” which allowed fresh water to flow into Newton Marshes, contrary to the ancient agreements mentioned earlier. He had also erected a new stone-built dam on the east side of the brook near to Dawbridge and also raised the banking and further confined the brook in order to improve the head of water to the mill wheel.

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There was yet another renewal of the lease by the Sharples from the Earl of Derby in 1829, this document gives some details of the site. It lists a messuage, e.g. a millers house, a water corn mill, two mill dams and a corn drying kiln. This must have been the brick built mill which was recorded later in the century in 1850 and sold by the Derby Estates to the Cliftons of Lytham Hall, with one Thomas Battersby, presumably the miller, as one of the lives lessees. A Battersby, possibly a son of Thomas, was also mentioned in occupation when the mill was sold to the trustees of the John Hornby Charity School for £350 in 1882. This sale appears to begin a period of changes as the tenancy and millers change on almost an annual basis. The mill’s tenant after this sale appears to have been Christopher Dobson, who did not last long as the tenant was recorded again in 1885 as one Robert Cartmell of Treales, at a rent of £23 per year. The following year the mill was let to Richard Pritt at the enhanced rent of £28 per annum. But Robert Cartmell was back in as tenant by 1888 and possibly stays until 1891 when the mill and its appurtenances, except the head race which ran through the school’s lands, was sold by the trustees to the Freckleton Marsh Owners. Ostensibly this sale was aimed at dismantling the mills works, especially the dam and the water races which had always been a problem to the graziers and adjoining landowners, as these often impeded water flows and caused the flooding of the pasture lands. However, the Marsh owners appear to keep the mill running as it was still in use and operating to its full capacity in 1918, and ran until c1922.

It was recorded by Robert Walker as a brick built structure in a reasonable state of repair with internal works almost intact in 1940. In 1968 Ashmore gives it a mention stating that only the wheel house site with a mounting block and one wheel bearing survive on the site, and today there are no traces to be seen on the presumed site. Not a very fitting end to a mill site that was known to have worked and served the local community for over 700 years.

LENTWORTH MILL.

Lentworth mill in Wyresdale ( SD 540 539) a site excavated and surveyed by Ben Edwards, when he found it to be an almost intact unchanged specimen of a seventeenth century water mill. Being built in the Elizabethan period and on new ground, Lentworth mill, would have required some form of licence from the Queen, though such a document has not yet been traced. We do know, however, roughly when it was first erected, for, in 1601, a case came before the courts of the Duchy which related to the mill, and evidence was then given that "Francis Tunstall....about ten yeares sythence[since] erected...one water corne mylne...upon parcell of grownds...belonginge to the tenement....called lentworth". C.1590.

The case which led to the giving of the evidence quoted above is of some interest. The evidence itself is that of one Thomas Parkinson, of Swainshead, and he was a defendant in an action with Francis Tunstall. The nub of the matter was an alleged assault by Parkinson on Tunstall, but Parkinson used his evidence to air a number of grievances about the recently erected mill which are enlightening.

His first complaint related to the building of the weir or dam for the mill. According to Parkinson, this lay partly on land once in his father's tenancy and now his. Tunstall had clearly alleged that there had been an agreement between himself and Parkinson pere about this. Parkinson fils said he knew nothing of this, nor had he himself been party to such an agreement.

He went on to say that he did not know by what licence Tunstall erected the mill or what rent he paid. He then passed to a complaint that Tunstall "or others by his appoyntment doe yearelye fell and cutt downe greate store of woods" for maintenance of the mill dam. This, he said, was detrimental to the royal deer in the forest, leading to "wante of coverte and browse", and detrimental also to her majesty's tenants who "neither nowe

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nor in tyme to come can hewe woods and tymber wherewithall to repayre thier severall howses unto which Reparacions they are bounde by force and vertue of their severall leases".

He went on to complain of the "delvinge digginge and gettinge of sodds" before coming to another point. Tunstall's evidence must have claimed that the agreement with Parkinson allowed the latter his "oate meale mulcture free to the quantytye of a number of lx bushells yearelye", but Thomas Parkinson said that none of "her highness tenants within the sayd forreste of Wyersdall...are bounde and tyed in anye sorte to grynde their... cornes and gryste at the sayed newe erected mylne but are and always have beene...at lybertye to bringe thier corne to bee grounde at what other mylne or mylnes best please and lyke themselves and where they shall fynde themselves best used". We shall have occasion to return to the question of "suit of mill" later.

Having disposed of his various reasons for wishing that the mill had never been built, Parkinson comes to the question of the alleged assault. This is his version of events; we can imagine Tunstall's, the copy of which in the Public Record Office is not in good enough condition to photograph legibly. "This defendant beinge walkinge within [his] grownds neare to the sayd mylne dammes or weares...and comyng to [Francis Tunstall his workemen] then workinge and quyetly and peaceablye standinge by them this defendant not havinge anye weapons upon or aboute him but a (?--) under habd rodd of yarde long or thereabouts this defendant dyd bidd them worke at their perill whereupon afterwards the sayd Francis Tunstall dyd lykewyse come to and stande by the sayd workemen and after some speeches passed betweene the sayd Francis and this defendant dyd vyolently with a staffe which he then had in his hande strycke at this defendant and dyd gyve to this defendant (---) blowes upon sundry parts of his bodye insomuche as the sayd Francis Tunstall not ceasinge his outrageous behaviors untill some of his workemen or sevants dyd come to him and dyd hold him from further feightinge at that tyme and thereupon this defendant in peascable manner as aforesayed departed and went awaye from the sayed Francis Thustall".

The mill had clearly not got off to an auspicious start. That evidence was heard on 2 February, 1601/2. When Lentworth Hall was sold by the Earl of Devon in 1605, the mill was specifically excluded from the sale as it had been when the Earl purchased Lentworth from James I. So it is assumed to have been sold to an outsider, but was later attached to the estate.

In 1605, the mill was in the "tenor of Gilbert Southworth, Richard Urmstone and John Southworth". Who else worked the mill we do not know. However, in the years intervening between its first mention in a conveyance and the next, in a mortgage, two things did occur which had their effect on the mill. Firstly, in 1623 Thomas Sherborne obtained a licence to erect a corn mill in the vaccary of which he leased a moiety - "dunnshawe alias dunkenshawe". The mill was to be built at Sherborne's own charge, and he was to pay the King a yearly rent of 13s 4d. Part of Sherborn's petition for the licence is recited in the document itself, this "shewing that there is but one mill within the whole Forest of Wiersdale unto which noe suite or service belongeth and the same farr distant from many of his majesties tenants in the said Forest, who being but poore men are forced to carrie thier corne uppon thier backs two or three myles to the mylne, and many tymes stay there two or three dayes before their corne can be ground which is very inconvenient for them".

A Commission was appointed to decide whose dwellings fell within the stated distance. Fourteen days' notice of the arrival of the commission was to be given and a further 15 shillings to be paid by the Defendant to the Plaintiff out of a bond deposited with the court. The Defendant's contempt was then purged.

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The Court ordered the Commission's report to be published on 8 February, 1626/7. It made the following points: (i) The dwellings of all the inhabitants of eleven named vaccaries [i.e. all except Tarnbrook, Marshaw and Gilberton - see Fig. Two.]65, together with those of four named inhabitants of Marshaw fell within the stated distance. (ii) Dunnockshaw Mill was 2.25 miles and 57 perches each of 5.5 yards from Lentworth Mill (i.e. 4273.5 yards). (iii) The addition of another furlong to the "exclusion" distance of three miles would encompass the dwellings of all the inhabitants of the Forest. (iv) "because some controversie did arise between the plaintiff and the defendant what a statute mile was" they reported it as eight furlongs each or forty perches each of 5.5. yards "which we take to be the undoubted statute mile in England".

At the final hearing on 22 February, 1626/7, the Court ordered as follows:(i) Dunnochshaw Mill was not to grind corn of inhabitants within three miles of Lentworth Mill. (ii) All such inhabitants to grind all their corn at Lentworth Mill except;(iii) That if it could not be ground within 24 hours of being left at fit and reasonable hours (Sunday not to count) they could take it elsewhere.(iv) They were not to "come in a multitude or throng together by practice purposely to overcharge the said mill", a proviso which suggests the court had some experience of dealing with this kind of problem and the methods employed by some to circumvent the sense of its judgements.

Thus Lentworth Mill was provided with "suit of mill", the existence of which had been carefully denied previously, both in the 1601 assault case and in the 1623 Dunnockshaw licence. The privilege was still being written into leases as late as 1746.

Lentworth documents mentioning the mill tell us that between 1677 and 1685 the mill was a fulling mill. From 1681 onwards the presence of a "kill" (drying kiln) is mentioned, and, as already observed, down to 1746 "suit of mill" is specifically mentioned in leases.

The documents available in the Shireburne archive take us down to 1759. Two interesting sidelights are thrown on the drying kiln by two eighteenth century leases relating, in the first case, to another Shireburne property within Wyresdale. By 1717 the Shireburne family estates, by default of male heirs, had passed to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. Her Grace's steward had a habit of noting conditions for the renewal of a lease on the reverse of the lapsed lease. One such reads "to get no turfe in caw being in poss[ess]ion of Francis Hodgson and preserv'd for Kill Fire". The other, of 1759 and relating to Lentworth itself, lays on the lessee the duty of repairs including those of the "Mill & Kiln Dams Call fenders sluices & banks & also the Millstones Mill geers hair Cloth Wheels & all other the tolls [sic = ?tools] & implements to the sd Mill & Kiln belonging". The interesting item here is the hair cloth, for such were used as the surface on which to lay the grain for drying prior to the development of perforated tiles (for which see later).

In Cragg’s Diary under the date May 1800 occurs the following: "Caw Mill wear is to be made up again this summer wood being now felling for that purpose. Joseph Whiteside joining with Tomlinson at the mill & C for the time to come". The implication of this note may well be that the mill, by now apparently disassociated from Lentworth, had been out of use for some time. This idea is perhaps supported by the other reference made by Timothy Cragg. The date is October, 1800 and a marginal note "Caw Mill" assures us 65. The 21 vaccaries listed in the fourteenth century are reduced to 14 thus: 2 were incorporated in Quernmore; 4 (for which identifications were suggested above) had ceased to be vaccaries; and the remaining discrepancy is accounted for by the fact that Gilberton, like Lee, was in two parts in the fourteenth century but, unlike Lee, had merged by the seventeenth century.

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which mill is under discussion. "On the 10th most of the Cogs in the Cogwheel broke. From the[n] to the 29th two and sometimes three millwrights were employed in repairing the Wheel and other machinery in the Mill at 5/- per day and a quart of ale each. On the 29th they started the mill again and it is reported to do very well."

It seems a reasonable probability that the mill had been out of use for some time and was restarted by the rebuilding of the weir in May. Thereafter the cog-wheel (i.e. the pit-wheel66 - see later for details of the machinery) survived use with the low levels of water in the summer but succumbed to an autumn spate in October.

The Physical remains.

What remains today is a long narrow building, 71 feet x 19 feet (22 metres x 6 metres) with its long axis at right angles to the slope, (Fig Three). The Wyre at this point is running westwards and a meander to the south is delimited by a vertical rock face which was picturesquely hung with icicles when the writer first saw it. The corresponding bluff to the north is, of course, well back from the river, and it is on the gently-sloping piece of flood plain between that the mill is situated. Here, on the north bank of the Wyre a tributary stream (called, in its upper reaches, Lentworth Beck, but lower down, Gallows Clough) joins the river, and the mill is situated beside it, though it does not relate to the functioning of the mill.

The building has obviously been considerably modified over the course of its existence, but it is clear that it was of the type defined by Davies-Shiel as a "bank mill", on the analogy of the bank barns so common in Lakeland67.

The bank mill must be one of the simplest forms of mill, and the direct access to its upper floor eliminates the necessity for most of the complex hoist machinery so often found in mills. We will return to the question of the mill's machinery and of its water-supply shortly, but we must first describe the features of the building and consider its modifications.

If we start at the upper short end and proceed round the building clockwise, we find, first, in the north gable a single window once divided by a stone mullion and now partially blocked with wood and partially occupied by a modern iron-framed window. Below are two vertical ventilation slits which must relate to the use at some recent date of the upper part of the building as a shippon. These air slits consist mainly of a narrow gap in the wall with a horizontal lintel.

Turning the corner to the east side, we encounter immediately a doorway. The right jamb of this doorway is partially formed by the ends of the quoins of the building, and there is a rebate or moulding cut into these stones and those which intersperse them. The left jamb, by contrast, has no architectural features at all, and, given the presence of a wooden lintel in which the present door and doorway are not quite central, it seems likely that the doorway has been widened on its left side. There are no air slits in this wall, but some 20 feet (6 m.) along is a square opening with its sill 3 feet 6 inches (1 m.) from ground level. The opening is just over 2 feet (60 cm.) square, and is defined by two vertical stones which rest on the sill and on which the lintel rests. The right vertical

66. I have suggested that it was the pit-wheel which broke because of the time taken to repair it. The gear wheel with which this is meshed was likely to have been a "lantern pinion". This consists of two wooden discs mounted on the shaft and joined by vertical rods. These would break relatively easily in the case of, for example, a flash flood, but could be easily and cheaply replaced, so protecting the other machinery.

67. Bank Mills described in Watermills of Cumbria by M. Davies-Shiel, Clapham 1978.

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has two hinge pintles of iron, and the left vertical traces of a fastening, as if for an external shutter.

In approximately the centre of the east wall occurs one of the oddest architectural features of the building as it now stands. This consists of two wide openings reaching from ground level to eaves. They are separated by what is in fact the east end of the wall which internally divides the building into two parts. Both openings have quoin stones, to the north of the north opening and to the south of the south one, and both show evidence of having been blocked in a number of stages, largely with stone but, in one case, partly with wood. Each opening is about 6 feet (2 m.) wide and they have wooden lintels which are just below the eaves and rest centrally on the dividing wall. On one of the stones of the dividing wall are two inscriptions reading "I F 1725 and A R 1750". There is no reason to doubt that they are contemporary with their purported dates, the letter and figure forms being acceptable. I am indebted to Miss E.M. Garnett for the suggestion that the persons so immortalised may be, respectively, a member of the Fox family and Andrew Richmond, though we do not know what their connection with the mill was. Well-executed graffiti of this type are fairly common on various elements of mills, and may be semi-official, marking, as Miss Garnett suggests, such an event as the completion of apprenticeship.68

Some 5 feet (1.3 m.) south of the south opening the ground begins to drop in a gradual slope, the fall being nearly 7 feet (2.10.m.). 12 feet (3.70.m.) further south is another two-lighted mullioned window, without its mullion and blocked by stone. Its sill is nearly level with the higher ground level to the north. 5 feet (1.50.m.) further south is the opening through which the mill wheel (of which more later) can be seen.

On the south gable there were three openings. At ground level a doorway, 4 feet (1.2.m) wide and 5 feet 6 inches (1.55.m.) high, with a massive stone lintel, gives access to the water-wheel, while above was a third stone-mullioned window. To its right occurs a similar-sized opening with a wooden lintel; both are blocked with stone.

The west face of the building appears in three parts. To the right the wall face has four visible features. Top right a window-sized blocked opening, low down a small lintel can be discerned. Top left a tall narrow doorway has been blocked in two stages. Bottom left is a small ground level opening through which it is possible to crawl.

Centrally in this wall is a small outshut (a small attached building) some 8 feet (2.5.m.) square externally. This has one air slit in each of its north and south walls, and much of the face of its west wall has fallen away.

Internally, the upper part of the building has evidence of its use as a shippon. Centrally in its south wall is a gap through which the lower part of the building can be seen, with its floor some 5 feet 6 inches (1.65.m.) below. That lower portion is bounded on the south by a wall which cuts off the water wheel and through which is led the wheel shaft to rest on a bearing on the north side of the wheel pit in which the pit wheel itself survives.. Above the water wheel and pit wheel is the remains of a wooden floor/staging which carried the mill stones.

We must now consider in detail the surviving evidence of the mill's machinery, which will lead us to try to reconstruct what we can of the original appearance of this much-modified building. We can look at the arrangements for supplying the mill with water before finally turning to the date(s) of the surviving remains and their significance in a wider context.

68. Garnett, E.M. The Dated Buildings of South Lonsdale, Centre for North-West Regional Studies, Lancaster University 1994. 202.

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The Machinery.

The surviving elements of the mill's machinery are four in number only, but they enable us to reconstruct the way in which the mill worked. They are (i) The Water Wheel (ii) The wheel shaft (iii) The pit Wheel (iv) The Bridge Tree.

The water wheel is made almost entirely of wood. It has eight spokes, is 13 feet (4 m.) in diameter and 4 feet (1.20.m.) wide. There are metal plates where the spokes meet the rim of the wheel.69 The shaft, like the wheel, is wooden, and 2 feet (1.6.m.) in diameter. An iron axle protrudes from the wooden shaft at each end, but there is no means of knowing whether or not this represents a single axle or separate shorter pieces of iron at each end. The end of the shaft is bound with three iron hoops. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the wheel and shaft arrangements at Lentworth is the outer bearing. A large baulk of timber is set along the edge of the wheel pit, and the bearing on which the iron pin ran would normally have been hidden within it. A small amount of decay to the timber, however, allows the bearing surface to be seen, and shows that it consists of a cobble of volcanic stone, not unlike a Neolithic stone axe in appearance, and doubtless made from much the same material. This method of providing a bearing for the wheel is known and recorded, but is, nevertheless, a very primitive feature to find in a mill we know to have worked into the nineteenth century.

The shaft passes through an aperture in the southern wall of the mill proper and is then fitted with a pit wheel. This wooden wheel, is made up of separate pieces equivalent to the felloes of a cartwheel. Through these are driven separate teeth or cogs, each secured by a vertical peg through it. The working face of this wheel was the southern face i.e. that nearer the water wheel.

The wheel itself is of the type known as a "clasp-arm" wheel. That is to say that its spokes are in the shape of the figure used for noughts and crosses. The shaft passes through the central square, and the difference in shape between the round shaft and the square aperture is accommodated by means of wedges.

The vertical shaft and the pinion which it carried to engage these teeth have gone, but this is entirely understandable since the stones, too, have disappeared - a slightly surprising fact in so remote a location. The vertical shaft, however revolved in an iron bearing fitted to the upper surface of a horizontal baulk of timber, and these are still present.

This baulk of timber is known as the bridge tree, and, as usual is slightly bowed downwards. If the timber construction of the water wheel, its stone bearing, and the single pair of stones which were all that existed, all form some index of the primitive character of Lentworth Mill; so, too, does the method of adjustment of the bridge tree. Since the upper stone in a mill is fixed to the shaft which drives it (by an iron clamp called the rhind), and the lower stone is fixed, the only way to adjust the gap between the stones, and thus the fineness of the flour, is to move up or down the upper stone, the shaft to which it is fixed , and the bearing in which that shaft runs. Many mills have means of moving the bridge tree which carries that bearing gradually (by some sort of lever or handle), or at least of fixing it at any of a series of positions (by a series of peg holes and a peg, for example). Nothing of the sort seems to have existed at Lentworth. Here, both ends of the bridge tree are cut into tenons which pass through slots in vertical timber posts. As far as can be told, the precise location of the bridge tree could have been effected only by the use of wedges.

69. In fact, although apparently complete, only half the water-wheel survives. The lower half, buried in the silt which has filled the wheel-pit, has completely decayed.

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Vertically above the bearing on the bridge tree a circular gap in (very decayed) timber staging showed where the single pair of stones had been. Interestingly, there survived one of the wedges which ensured the horizontal position of the lower stone. Shaped rather like one segment, or felloe, of a wheel, it is wedge-shaped in the transverse section.

There remain one or two loose ends to be dealt with. First, the drying kiln. In bank mills of the type to which Lentworth belonged, the drying kiln was often at the upper end with direct ground-level access to the drying floor, and access to the firing hole of the kiln from the lower (mill) end. A good example of such a mill was examined a few years ago in Cumbria. Here, the general arrangements were very similar to those at Lentworth, though there were two pairs of stones, the water wheel was external and the kiln floor had never developed to the stage of having tiles. There existed only transverse stone bars, on which, presumably, a horse-hair cloth had been used.

The Lentworth kiln certainly did have a tile floor, if the evidence of finds is to be believed. Firstly, among the stones blocking one of the large openings on the east face of the mill was a fragment of a ceramic kiln-tile, of the most primitive, and therefore, presumably, the earliest type. Secondly, fragments of a number of others were recovered in the course of clearing the area of the pit-wheel.

These finds of kiln tile fragments suggest strongly that the kiln had a longer life than that proved by the documents.

The Water Supply.Lentworth is "leated", i.e. the water is led off the main stream by a leat or channel. A channel with some form of sluice control leads from the leat back to the main stream before the water reaches the mill, to enable water to be diverted from the water wheel should such a step be necessary e.g. for maintenance. The mill leat at Lentworth is now dry, and it is an interesting comment on changing water levels that the entrance to the leat is now well above any normal water level in the Wyre. It may well be that this would have been the case anyway, but in this particular example the building of the Abbeystead Reservoir must have had a considerable effect on water levels in the river.

The diversion channel had already been identified on the ground before it had been noted that the first six inch map marks a ford across the Wyre apparently using the diversion channel as a track.

It is also noticeable that the same map does not mark a weir, though the presence of one is attested both by Timothy Cragg of Ortner and by other map evidence70. This may be thought to suggest that the mill was already disused by 1844, as it certainly was by 1890, (see figure six), when the first 25 inch plan so marks it. The building of the reservoir alluded to, in 1855, may have been the final nail in the coffin of the mill.

Despite its monopoly of the right to grind the corn of the people of Wyresdale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Lentworth must always have been a small scale mill in a remote area. The corn ground is likely always to have been oats, and clearly technological innovation passed it by. It was not noticed by William Yates when he produced the first large scale printed map of Lancashire in 1786. It was not noticed by P.P.Hall when he surveyed the mils of the Wyre valley in 196971. And no one really 70. A plan found by Phil Hudson in Lancashire Record Office Maps Collection DDHH, box 43, dated 1815, and reproduced in figure five, shows the weir. The diversion channel alluded appears to be already out of use, which perhaps explains the O.S. identification of it as an old ford some thirty years later. A diversion channel close to the mill is shown. The building is already of its present plan.

71. Dolphinholme by P.P.Hall, Transactions of the Fylde Historical Society. Vol.3. (1969).

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noticed when it ground its last grain somewhere in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is a Grade II listed building under the name of Caw Mill.

Revised by PJH Sept 1995.

end.

Needs a conclusion.**

Note: I have not put in any more footnotes or refs until we decide just what we are including, as it will save time.

Total for this document is 23,000 words. Including footnotes, but not gaz.

PJH 23.9.95.

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