Sturminster Newton Mill

Sturminster Newton Mill

This is a water grist mill of outstanding historical significance, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries with later extensions. The mill was originally constructed in the late 16th century as a timber-framed building, then substantially reconstructed in stone around the middle of the 17th century. A further extension in brick was added in the late 18th or early 19th century, standing on an earlier ashlar plinth believed to be the remains of a fulling mill mentioned in a 1611 deed. The site itself has even greater antiquity, with a mill recorded in the Domesday Book.

The building is constructed of ashlar and coursed stone rubble, with the remains of earlier timber-framing visible in the north wall of the south range. The later north range is built in English bond red brick on its ashlar base. The roofs are covered in stone tile and clay plain tile, with gabled and half-hipped ends.

The plan is L-shaped overall. The south range, which probably dates from the late 16th century, is a 2-storey structure with an attic. Its ashlar south wall features three casement windows with small panes on the first floor, a main entrance at the east end with a taking-in door above, and a window to its right with another in the gable above. The north wall is partly stone and brick with visible remains of earlier timber-framing; at the north-east corner stands a diagonally-set buttress with a weathered set-off. The later north wing, also of 2 storeys with attic, has an ashlar plinth with brick construction above, and features 2-light timber windows with cambered brick arches. A small loft window appears in the north gable end. The wheel-pit situated between the two ranges now contains the turbine room.

Internally, the south range retains significant features from its original period. A blocked stone Tudor arch doorway of low height survives in the west end wall at meal floor level. The floor beams are supported at their north ends by timber posts with moulded corbelled heads, and the large unchamfered floor beams and joists remain intact. The roof structure of the south range is particularly notable, dating to the late 16th or early 17th century, with collar trusses featuring two tiers of threaded purlins, a threaded diagonal ridgepiece, curved wind-braces and mostly intact common-rafters. The mortice-and-tenoned collars have been replaced by collars set higher. The north wing's roof features tie-beam trusses with staggered trenched purlins, a diagonally-set ridgepiece, halved and lapped collars and intact common-rafters.

The mill's machinery is substantially intact and remains in working order. A pair of under-shot water wheels, side-by-side and installed in 1849, were replaced in 1904 by a single water turbine. Two of the three pairs of original millstones were replaced in 1947 by a pair of hammer-mills. Grain bins on the bins floor survive from the 19th-century period.

Sturminster Newton Mill represents an outstanding early example of a substantial 16th- and 17th-century water mill, notable for the survival of its 19th-century machinery in full working order.