Easterford Mill

Easterford Mill

Water mill of 18th-century origin, altered in the early 19th century. Timber framed and weatherboarded, roofed with handmade red plain tiles. The building comprises a main range facing northwest, abutting Easterford Mill House to the right, with a small single-storey lean-to extension to the left and three catslide extensions of various dates to the rear, forming a rectangular plan. Two storeys and loft.

The main elevation features one early 19th-century sash window of 16 lights on the ground floor and one 20th-century casement. The first floor has three early 19th-century sashes of 16 lights with crown and bullseye glass. One 20th-century door and one plain boarded door serve the ground floor, while an external stair leads to a further plain boarded door on the first floor. The right end of the roof is semi-conical where it overlays the roof of Easterford Mill House. A lucam (ventilating turret) was under repair at the time of survey in October 1986. Above the lucam is a gabled enclosure for the hoist projecting above the ridge. One gabled dormer to the rear, over the catslide roof, lights the loft.

The mill, often known as "Easterford or Rogers" after its last miller, is a typical three-pair country mill. It remained in working order until the 1930s without employing auxiliary power. The machinery is substantially intact. The waterwheel is all iron with flat paddles set on pegged wooden starts (these corroded paddles were replaced in steel after the survey). The wheel shaft extends to carry a belt pulley on the side opposite the pit wheel. The stone nuts, pit wheel and wallower are iron; the spur is a fine old wooden compass wheel and the vertical shaft is also wooden. The stone nuts were raised by a simple screw and spanner device. The bridge trees consist of two heavy timbers at right angles in each case, with the member carrying the stone spindle set across the raised member and adjusted by tentering screw. Both ends are tenons sliding in mortices, with fixed ends held by iron pins adjustable by choice of holes, rendering the pinion jacks very accessible. On the stone floor, the wooden sack hoist pinion gears unbevelled into the compass arm crown wheel, with the sack hoist pulley being exceptionally large at approximately four feet six inches in diameter.

The building itself is unusual. The weight of the stage floor is taken on an inside timber frame, with the front wall supporting only the roof. Originally a mansard structure of mid-18th-century date, the thrust of the roof caused the feet of the upright posts to kick inwards; large rough-hewn knees were subsequently fixed with large Colt screws in the angles between the tie beams and vertical posts. Later, the north wall was raised and a single span roof erected over it, so that the eaves are now higher at the front than the back and the stage floor is lit by windows in the wall rather than by the usual rooflights and gables. The inner timber frame is of hardwood, some reused material.

Damsels and shoes remain on two of the stones with a simple system of adjusting the damsel's beat by leading the crook string over one of four notches cut in the horse frame. All machinery remains in place. A new steel sluice gate is operated by the original cast iron gearing. The mill is shown distantly in a photograph of around 1865 reproduced in B.L. Kentish's Kelvedon and its Antiquities (1974), plate 7.