This little corn mill dates from 1815 and was restored by Clwyd County Council in 1985-9, apparently as a visitor attraction.
However it seems to have fallen on hard times - a local said she had never seen it open in the 10 years she had lived in the village, and the only visitors now are bats.
There are several posters on the walls with quite a bit about the history of the place; the mill was worked from 1920 to 1949 by George F. Heald, producing oat, barley and wheat flours and then by ‘Derreck and Margaret Horsefield’ until 1984.
Most of the mill machinery is still there, but a couple of the processing devices described in the posters seem to have gone.
As was common in rural mills, the water wheel also powered a dynamo to provide electricity before the arrival of the mains.
Pictures are a mixture of camera and phone.
Water came down the channel (‘launder’) on the left from a mill pond, with the flow controlled by a sluice operated from within the mill.
The green silos next to the channel are where the corn was stored. The water wheel could apparently generate 20-25 horsepower.
Do come in..
Ground floor - everything you need to know about the workings is reproduced below.
First floor. Not obvious from the picture but there are three pairs of mill stones in wooden boxes on the floor.
A metal ‘damsel’ which rotated, bumping against the chute to jog grain into the hole in the middle of the stones, with a view down the hole in another pair on the right.
A cleaning machine to sieve out stalks, stones etc.
A one-way flap for hauling up sacks using water power.
View from a different corner showing a blue grinder on the far right (S. Corbett & Sons). I don’t know what the drum with a handle next to it was for.
The small attic at the front of the building had a colony of little bats above a pile of bat poo. A quick long range picture of the closest one so as not to disturb them - rather fuzzy because it was gurning and gnashing its tiny teeth.
This is the third time is as many months I’ve ended up in a bat roost in Wales.
However it seems to have fallen on hard times - a local said she had never seen it open in the 10 years she had lived in the village, and the only visitors now are bats.
There are several posters on the walls with quite a bit about the history of the place; the mill was worked from 1920 to 1949 by George F. Heald, producing oat, barley and wheat flours and then by ‘Derreck and Margaret Horsefield’ until 1984.
Most of the mill machinery is still there, but a couple of the processing devices described in the posters seem to have gone.
As was common in rural mills, the water wheel also powered a dynamo to provide electricity before the arrival of the mains.
Pictures are a mixture of camera and phone.
Water came down the channel (‘launder’) on the left from a mill pond, with the flow controlled by a sluice operated from within the mill.
The green silos next to the channel are where the corn was stored. The water wheel could apparently generate 20-25 horsepower.
Do come in..
Ground floor - everything you need to know about the workings is reproduced below.
First floor. Not obvious from the picture but there are three pairs of mill stones in wooden boxes on the floor.
A metal ‘damsel’ which rotated, bumping against the chute to jog grain into the hole in the middle of the stones, with a view down the hole in another pair on the right.
A cleaning machine to sieve out stalks, stones etc.
A one-way flap for hauling up sacks using water power.
View from a different corner showing a blue grinder on the far right (S. Corbett & Sons). I don’t know what the drum with a handle next to it was for.
The small attic at the front of the building had a colony of little bats above a pile of bat poo. A quick long range picture of the closest one so as not to disturb them - rather fuzzy because it was gurning and gnashing its tiny teeth.
This is the third time is as many months I’ve ended up in a bat roost in Wales.
