Old Mill

BRIDGWATER

ST3036 BLAKE STREET 736-1/9/13 (East side) 24/03/50 Old Mill

GV II

Mill, now storage space and future gallery for the Blake Museum to the left (qv). Medieval site, rebuilt early/mid C19. Painted limestone rubble base with painted English-bond brick above, pantile roof, half-hipped to the front gable end. Rectangular plan with extensions to the left. 2 storeys; one-window range. The front, facing north-west up Blake Street, has a C20 two-light casement window at eaves level under the half hip; at its cill level, to the left, is a timber lintel to a small 4-pane window; below it on the the ground floor is a timber lintel to a C20 vertical 6-pane window and to the right are C20 double planked doors under a C20 timber lintel. The right return has a gauged brick segmental arch to a C19 two-light window high on the ground floor. A catslide roof and other extensions to the left are concealed behind a cottage which is part of the Blake Museum. INTERIOR: the upper floor of the main block to the right has C19 cross-bracing to a horizonally planked roof and a 4-light window to the rear, half of the floor extends to the left in the upper part of the outshut. The ground floor has a pit with some cogged machinery which housed the former undershot mill wheel. The Durleigh Brook runs beneath the mill in a vaulted rubblestone culvert. History: recorded in the C14 and known as the Town Mill by the C17. It was owned in 1709 by Richard Lowbridge who gained permission from the Mayor and Corporation "to break up the soil of the streets, lanes, etc in the town in order to convey water from his mill stream, the Durleigh Brook, to the High Cross in Cornhill and thence to any streets in the town for the use of the inhabitants." The pipes were made of halved elm logs, hollowed out and rejoined, some were recovered in 1795 when the old stone bridge was removed, some in the late C19 when gas pipes were laid and some in the late C20 when new waterpipes were laid in the High Street. (Squibbs PJ: Squibbs' History of Bridgwater: Chichester: 1982-: 57; VCH: Somerset: London: 1992-: 215).

Listing NGR: ST3001136882