Bransdale Mill

Bransdale Mill is a cornmill, dating back to the 18th century, with extensions and rebuilding work undertaken in 1817 and 1842. Further restoration occurred in the 20th century. The mill was extended and rebuilt by William Strickland. It is constructed of herringbone-tooled sandstone with a pantile roof. The main block is two storeys and an attic, with a single window to the front, and a single-storey and attic extension to the left. Round-arched doorways with voussoirs flank a 16-pane sash window on the ground floor, with a similar window above. Two small shuttered openings are present in the attic. Stone sills and heavy tooled lintels feature on the windows, with the first-floor lintel inscribed "REBUILT 1842," flanked by tie rod ends shaped as the initials “W” and “S”. The end left has a coped gable and a coved cornice stack. The extension has a board door and unequal 12-pane sash window to the left, alongside a shuttered window to the right, with a small shuttered opening in the attic. A shaped sill of the left window may be a reused lintel.

The rear of the mill, three bays wide, is two storeys and an attic, built against the hillside. A central round-arched opening with tooled voussoirs is on the first floor, with shuttered openings in the attic. Water entered the wheel chamber through a small opening to the right of the first-floor opening, powering the mill. A grindstone installed at the rear of the mill in the late 19th century survives. A gable wall of the extension has a datestone inscribed “WS 1817”.

Inside, the wheel chamber to the left incorporates a reused 18th-century wheel pit. Surviving cast-iron machinery includes an overshot water-wheel with iron buckets, pitwheel, wallower, spur wheel, and crown wheel. There are three stone nuts with wooden teeth and three sets of millstones; banded French stones were made by GEORGE MARIS of HULL in 1842, greystones inscribed "HS NIS 1870", and bluestones are unmarked. A square section main shaft and hexagonal sack hoist shaft are also present. The extension contains a wooden framework for an oat crushing mill with one pair of stones and a sifter. The mill operated until 1917 as a corn mill, and continued grinding grist until 1953. At the time of resurvey, the mill was under restoration by The National Trust.