Downes Mill and Millhouse

Downes Mill and Millhouse is a grist mill and adjoining house built around 1850. The structure is made of volcanic rubble with large squared volcanic quoins and brick dressings, featuring a brick stack and a slate roof. The main block faces southeast, with the house on the left and the mill projecting forward as a gable-ended cross-wing on the right. The wheelhouse is built over the leat at the northeast end, aligned with the house. The house has a stack in the left gable end and a central stair plan, with a late 19th to early 20th-century extension at the rear. The house has three storeys, while the mill has four. The house features a symmetrical three-window front, all with hornless sashes and segmental brick arches above. The ground and first floors have 16-pane sashes, while the second floor has 12-pane sashes (four over eight). There is a central four-pane door with an overlight and a plain, open-sided 19th-century timber porch.

The gable end of the mill has an original door on the ground floor and loading doors on the first and second floors, which are under 20th-century concrete lintels. The loading bay on the third floor has been blocked by a 20th-century window. At the second floor level, a pair of projecting corbels may have once supported a hoist. The mill machinery is well-preserved; although the water wheel was removed and the leat was floored over when the mill was converted to diesel power, the remaining 19th-century machinery is intact. This includes a grist mill made by Clark and Dunman of Wakefield, Yorkshire, with some wrought-iron work by Wrights of Sandford.