Calbourne Mill

Calbourne Mill is a former watermill and attached mill house, dating to circa 1697 for the south-east range, the late 18th or early 19th century for the south-west range, and the mid-18th century for the attached mill house. Currently a visitor attraction and accommodation, the building is largely of stone rubble construction with brick dressings, with some sections heightened in brick, and has gabled slate roofing to the north and tiled roofing to the south. Primarily, it is of two or three storeys with irregular windows, now mainly 20th-century casements within earlier openings.

The south-eastern range is the oldest part, built of coursed stone rubble with brick dressings and heightened in the later 18th century in red brick in English bond. The east side, facing the mill pond, has a central entrance and a small original window opening with a 20th-century leaded light. An addition of the late 18th or early 19th century, the south-western range has stone rubble to the west and brick to the sides, with a further storey added later in the 19th century in stretcher bond brickwork. Each floor has two cambered openings with 20th-century casements, and a large cambered loading door is on the first floor. Attached is an iron overshot waterwheel, 20 feet in diameter, bearing the manufacturer’s name “J Dyer Newport Isle of Wight,” along with a cambered doorcase to the north. The mill house, of mid-18th century date, is of stone rubble with white brick dressings and has four windows, now 20th-century casements, mainly within original openings, and an off-centre doorcase with pilasters. A gabled projection in stone rubble with a tiled roof, likely of late 18th-century date, is situated between the mill and mill house to the east.

The interior of the south-east wing retains original rafters and a ridgepiece. The south-west range has a 19th-century roof of three bays with three tiers of purlins and a ridgepiece. The mill machinery is complete and includes a cog pit with a wooden main shaft, a main spur, a stone floor with a wooden crown wheel drive, a crusher, and two pairs of stones. The granary retains a sack hoist, the screen floor has four centrifugal sieves, three break rollers, a purifier, and a scalper, and the roller floor has a roller mill by Simons of Manchester from around 1890. A gas producer plant and two gas engines are located near the waterwheel.

A mill on this site is documented in the Domesday Book, with the earliest part of the current structure dating to an indenture of 1697.