Arden Mill

ARDEN MILL

A water-powered corn mill at Hawnby, near Main Lane. The mill site is believed to be of medieval origin, originally serving St Andrew's Priory, the Benedictine nunnery at Arden, which is hinted at in 1189 and documented by 1536. The current mill was refurbished in the early 18th century by Charles Tankred, around the time of the expansion of Arden Hall (1700-1710), to supply fine flour for the hall. The mill ceased working in 1912.

The building is constructed of rubble stone with a new pantile roof. It comprises a three-bay single-storey mill building, with the smoke bay of the former miller's house extending to the north.

The southern bay encloses the waterwheel pit, accessed through the gable wall. The wheel pit houses a 14-feet-diameter by 2-feet-wide overshot wheel of clasp arm construction in timber with timber buckets, fed from the west and discharging via a culverted tailrace to the east. The remaining two bays are separated from the waterwheel by an eves-height stone wall with roof truss above, forming a single room accessed from outside via a porch at the north end of the east wall, with access to the former miller's house through the north gable. An oat roaster is built into the east wall of the north bay with an external fire stoke hole. Mill machinery occupies the central bay, with a timber platform or hurst forming a mezzanine floor for the millstones. The mezzanine is lit by two windows in the east wall and one in the west, the latter perhaps serving as a loading access. A loft area in the north bay is accessed from the mezzanine. Ground floor surfacing of cobbles and flagstones includes at least one fragment of a former millstone.

The roof structure retains two cruck trusses with staggered purlins, trenched with the northern truss and supported by cleats with the southern truss. The rafters are modern.

The surviving portion of the former miller's house consists of a smoke bay including an inglenook fireplace with chamfered bressumer beam and salt box. The roof and external gable wall are modern.

The mill machinery is nearly complete but no longer operable. It features an early 18th-century layout with a pair of grey stones (5 feet diameter millstone grit) driven off the waterwheel shaft and a pair of blue stones (3.5 feet German lava) driven via gearing and a counter shaft. Most gearing is timber but includes some mid-19th-century cast iron replacements. The machinery includes a lighter staff (lever arrangement for controlling the separation of the millstones) and most of the mechanism for the oat roaster, designed to stir oats on a metal roasting plate to prevent burning. In 1846, William Megginson, the then miller, documented repairs, and is believed to have made modifications to the mill machinery in the 1850s, possibly to allow the milling of barley for animal feed.

The water management system for the mill included two dams, with the stone-lined overflow channel for the lower dam visible buried in the current riverbank, and a culverted tailrace. Adjacent to the tailrace is a water closet, a small stone building with a hipped roof of stone slates.

Arden Mill is of special interest as a water-powered corn mill of possibly medieval origin retaining a near-complete set of early 18th-century mill machinery with only minor mid-19th-century modifications and repairs. It is believed to be a unique national survival of a two-stage gearing arrangement developed in the early 18th century for milling high-quality fine flour for white bread production. It also retains other nationally rare surviving features such as the lighter staff and the oat roaster. Despite re-roofing, the mill building remains substantially complete with original openings and features such as original floor surfaces. The surviving evidence of associated features such as the water management system further enhances its special interest.