Spring Valley Mill

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 02/09/2020

TM 02 NW 5/46

ARDLEIGH. SPRING VALLEY LANE Spring Valley Mill

17.11.66

GV II* Water mill, later adapted to steam, now empty. Late C18. Timber framed and weatherboarded. Red tiled roof of two levels, gambrelled to road (north) with lucom at apex. Painted brick ground floor. Two storeys and loft, lower south bays and lean-to. Cast iron overshot wheel.

Road face (north) with arched braces to gabled lucom, two open lights under, first floor vertically sliding sash window, vertically boarded door. South face. 2:1:1 first floor small paned vertically sliding sashes, moulded surrounds. Ground floor 1:1:0 similar windows. Two doors to north range and a door each to south range and south extension, all vertically boarded.

The machinery and interior of the mill are complete but not in working order. Overshot waterwheel with cast iron frame and wrought iron buckets, fed by a cast iron trough from the mill pond. The wheel shaft, pit wheel and wallower are cast iron, but the upright shaft and great spur wheel are of wood. The great spur wheel is of the old compass-arm construction with six arms passing through the upright shaft. There are three pairs of millstones on the first floor complete with cases and hoppers etc., underdriven from the spur wheel below. All tentering gear is present. Above the stones is a wooden crown wheel and layshaft, which drove the sack hoist above and any dressing machinery the mill may have had. The roof space is partitioned into bins, and contains the sack hoist, which could act through the external sack traps or the lucom.

Setting for the novel Treasure at the Mill by Malcolm Saville. Robert Deeves was the miller working for Bezaliel Angier of Colchester, 1796. (Erith,1978)

Listing NGR: TM0383027745