Abbey Mill

Abbey Mill is a water mill dating to 1793, with later additions from the early to mid-19th century. It stands on the River Avon and has been converted into a restaurant and banqueting rooms. The building is of group value. The complex structure is arranged over three storeys and an attic, incorporating three parallel wings set gable-end to the street, with a third wing downstream forming a squat ‘T’ plan; the three elements are stepped back from the road, with the original wheel position in the middle range. It originally used three mill races for undershot wheels.

The exterior is a mix of brickwork, some painted, horizontal timber boarding, and tile roofs. Windows generally have segmental brick heads and timber frames, although the ground floor windows of the upstream wing are original cast-iron small-pane; a photograph from 1923 confirms cast-iron windows were retained here on the first floor. The front to Mill Street has a recessed, half-hipped wing to the left, with a dormer above two-light casements at both the first and second floors. A timber bridge provides access to a ground floor door on the right. The middle wing has a half-hipped end, with two-light windows on the first, second and third floors. Remnants of a large, cast-iron wheel with eight spokes remain in a pit below, with some blades intact, and the wheel is still turned. The wing to the right has painted brickwork and a gabled, boarded hauling bay at the top floor with a sixteen-pane pivoted light; below this is a sixteen-pane window in the main wall, above a pair of 20th-century doors leading to an external concrete staircase, and a plank door at ground floor. The upstream front has a projecting horizontal-boarded hauling way supported by slender cast-iron columns over a public footpath. Five dormers with sixteen-pane lights are above a row of small square lights at the second floor, and sixteen-pane lights to the first and ground floors. Pair plank doors are located in bay four under the projection.

The river front mirrors the Mill Street design, the parallel wings running flush. The first gabled wing has several sixteen-pane windows and a door to the right; the middle unit has a half-hipped roof above an arched, single-storey projection over a waterway. The recessed downstream wing has a lean-to with an arched opening over the waterway; above this is a structure similar to the opposite side, with a half-hipped gable end containing six-pane lights at the attic and second floors, and two-light windows on the first floor, with a plank door below giving access to a timber platform over the river.

The interior has been carefully restored and retains much of the original fabric, including a series of heavy square beams supported by varied cast-iron columns set on spreader plates.