Alsia Mill

A mill, dating from the 17th century and built on an earlier site, with alterations in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The mill is constructed of granite ashlar, granite rubble, and granite dressings, with a grouted scantle slate roof on a small wash house or bakehouse extension, and corrugated iron elsewhere. The gable ends of the mill were heightened in the 20th century. A stump of a dressed granite chimney stands over the right-hand end of the wash house. The original rectangular plan was bisected in the 17th century by the addition of a miller’s house, which was removed in the 20th century. The mill is built into the bank on the left, with a first-floor loading doorway at the left-hand end. A surviving overshot wheel is in poor condition, but the complete machinery is in fairly good condition. A single-cell wash house adjoins the mill, set back at the right-hand end. The front of the mill incorporates a party wall with the former miller’s house; the upper portion is 20th-century construction. A chamfered granite mill doorway from the 17th century is present on the right, with a chamfered jambstone of a former miller’s house doorway to the left. The end and rear walls are of dressed granite or granite ashlar. The wheel has an iron hub but wooden spokes, rim segments and buckets. The interior retains some 17th-century first-floor structure relating to the mill machinery, including a chamfered beam, and complete 19th-century mill machinery with iron gear wheels with wooden teeth on the larger wheels. This machinery drives two pairs of stones on the upper floor and is in working order. The stones retain their original wooden casing, with a wooden hopper over one of them. An old photograph showing the miller's house is held by the owner. This mill, with its complete machinery, is one of the most interesting and oldest in the area, last worked in 1966.