Mill At Gun'S Mills

SO 61 NE LITTLEDEAN Mill at Gun's Mills 6/67 (formerly Listed as Barn at Gunn's Mills, East Dean Parish) 23.9.55 GV II*

Formerly blast-furnace, later paper mill, now unused. 1682/3 (on iron lintels), mid C18. Coursed, squared rubble to furnace and blowing chamber, ashlar dressings and corrugated-iron roof to latter; upper building part rubble stone, part timber-framed, with slate roof. 'L' plan, pivoted on furnace, wings at different levels. Square blast-furnace at lower level, with tapering recess in main face, roof sloping back to main wall line, with 2 iron lintels. Doors at ground floor and in sloping face above. This recess repeated on left return, in blowing chamber, with dated lintels. Inside square chamber with sloping walls above 2m. Narrow top now covered by stone slab in floor of room above. Blowing chamber on left with opening against furnace, then 2 windows, unclosed: upper part of wall rebuilt in concrete block, (originally 2 floors). Behind pit, 7.5m long for overshot water- wheel: small arched recess in back wall. Space in front of furnace and blowing chamber was casting floor. Upper level at right-angles; timber-framed over furnace, 3-bays, built as paper mill. Wattle and daub infill to gable wall, open or glazed sides in 2 panels per bay: partition to stone section beyond, 3 bays, with floor over at eaves level. Trusses queen strut. Stone section 2 large openings in gable, one in side leading to 4-bay wing. Furnace originally built 1628, probably destroyed 1650; rebuilt 1682/3. Converted to papermill by 1743, and so used to at least 1900: furnace became stairs. Mill pond lay beyond house now filled in. Considered to be 'best remaining furnace of the earliest phase of British blast-furnace practice'. (C. Hart, The Industrial History of Dean, 1971, p. 43, 70, 379).

Listing NGR: SO6751115958