Former Water Powered Corn Mill Attached Cottage Ancillary Building Boundary Walling And Associated Spillway And Shuttles

Former Water-Powered Corn Mill with Attached Cottage, Ancillary Building, Boundary Walling and Associated Spillway and Shuttles

This is a former water-powered corn mill complex dating to the late 18th century, with 19th-century additions and late 20th-century restoration. The site comprises a mill building, cottage, ancillary structures, boundary walling, and associated water control features. The buildings are constructed from coursed rubble and squared block gritstone with ashlar dressings to the cottage, and are roofed with plain tile and slate. The whole complex has an irregular plan form with all elements connected together.

The mill itself is a substantial two-storey structure with a loft above a basement machine drive chamber, arranged in three bays. A small mill pond lies to the west. The west elevation has two storeys with an off-centre doorway and a brick chimney to the side wall. A bracket for a former shuttle mechanism survives to the left. The north and south gables, which face onto the wheelpits, feature massive squared block walling at wheelpit level pierced by single openings where horizontal shafts from the now-removed water wheels once connected to internal drive mechanisms. Above these openings, each gable has a central two-light flush mullioned window on both floors, with the lights featuring louvred lower halves and four glazed panes above. The south gable wheelpit is enclosed by a curved ashlar breast, with the pit and adjacent yard surrounded by tall rubble walling and a tall buttress on the pond side.

The mill interior retains a surviving drive mechanism including a vertical drive shaft and bevel gearing, with some components salvaged from Longford corn mill. Heavy spine beams support the milling or stone floor above.

The attached cottage is arranged in an L-plan formed by two building phases. The late 18th-century gabled range features quoins, a coped gable with shaped kneelers, and a first-floor venetian window. The attic has a semi-circular overlight, while the ground floor has a central six-over-six pane sash window. A 19th-century bay was added to the left, with its doorway positioned against the quoining of the gabled range. This bay has four-pane sashes to ground and first floors, a two-light casement to the attic, and two brick ridge chimneys. The cottage interior has been much altered.

The ancillary building is an L-shaped range of two and three storeys attached to the east wall of the mill. It comprises a two-bay former drying kiln to the west, which has an asymmetrical roof with a small gabled ridge louvre. A narrow parallel range to the south links to a three-storey former malthouse, which has large rectangular openings to the upper floors, one retaining surviving louvres. The ground floor has narrow unglazed vents. The interior of these buildings has been much altered and was being converted to a visitor centre at the time of inspection.

The boundary walling is constructed of rubble stone and curves to follow the course of Benzol Brook, linking the rear wall of the drying kiln and the front wall of the mill. The northern section stands on the pond embankment and incorporates a flat overflow spillway spanned by a 20th-century timber footway. Further north are three control shuttles with metal paddle gates to regulate outflow from the pond.

This mill complex is associated with the development of the settlement built by Sir Richard Arkwright at Cromford to serve the adjacent Cromford Mills. It survives as a near-complete example of a late 18th-century water-powered corn mill complex with its ancillary buildings and structures, including the mill cottage.