Addicroft Mill

Addicroft Mill is a watermill with attached house, probably of 18th-century origin but largely rebuilt around 1810, with later alterations from the 19th century and additions from the 20th century. It is built of slatestone and granite rubble with brick dressings, and has slate roofs with ridge tiles and gable ends.

The mill itself is a single-room structure of three storeys with the waterwheel positioned at the front gable end. Attached to the rear left, forming an L-plan, is a two-storey house of the same build as the mill. The house originally contained a two-room plan with a central entrance leading to a passage and stair, a parlour to the left and a kitchen to the right, each room heated by its own gable-end stack. In the later 19th century, a cow house was attached to the right end of the house and is now incorporated as part of it. In the 20th century, a two-storey range was added at the rear of the house, running parallel to it, and this was under construction at the time of survey in October 1986.

The mill leat runs to the front gable end and drives a breast shot wheel. The wheel has a cast iron rim and wooden floats. The interior machinery is complete and in full working order, built by Jabez Buckingham of Northill.

The front gable end of the mill displays the waterwheel, with a two-light casement with flat brick arch at first floor and a small four-pane casement with flat brick arch at second floor. The right side has a stable door at ground and first floor and a two-light casement at ground floor, all with cambered brick arches. A 20th-century external stone stair forms a porch to the mill and leads to the first floor doorway of both the mill and the house. The house front has a 20th-century door to the left and a two-light casement to the right, with a first floor door and two-light casement, all with cambered brick arches. The cow house adjoins to the right at a lower roof level and has two two-light casements at ground and first floor with cambered brick arches. The right gable end has a 20th-century glazed door and window at ground and first floor. The left side of the mill has a two-light and single casement at ground floor with cambered brick arches. The house gable end to the left has a two-light casement to the right of the stack at ground floor and four-pane lights to the right and left at first floor.

Inside the mill, the spout floor contains the pit wheel, wallower and great spur wheel, arranged as a two-step drive with two pairs of millstones on the stone floor. The original gearing mechanism on both sides allows the millstones to be driven separately. Both sets of stones retain their original wooden housing and hoppers, consisting of one pair of granite stones and one pair of Buhrstones with plaster of Paris. A secondary drive powers a pulley to the bin floor above. The mill also retains a grain cleaner formerly worked by an electric fan, a sack balance for weighing grain, stone rollers for apple crushing that could be geared from the waterwheel, and a complete cider press.

The parlour in the house has a fireplace with granite jambs and a cambered timber lintel, and a cupboard to the right with shaped shelves and glazed doors with glazing bars. The rear wall contains a two-light casement, now internal, with panelled shutters. The kitchen to the right has a gable-end fireplace with squared granite rubble jambs and a flat timber lintel, chamfered with run-out stops. The ceiling is formed of rough chamfered cross beams.

Although the house has been altered and enlarged, the mill building and its machinery remain complete and in full working order, making it most unusual.