Old Viney Bridge Mill

The Old Viney Bridge Mill is a late 18th and early 19th century mill complex, with 19th-century additions, located on South Street in Crewkerne. It is constructed primarily of limestone rubble, with slate and pantile roofs.

The mill’s layout follows a linear plan, largely at a right angle to South Street. A former engine house is flanked by workshops that once housed weaving operations. The six-window range to the left has a Ham Hill stone Tuscan doorcase featuring an open pediment, an ornamental fanlight, and fielded panels. All windows are set within gauged segmental stone arches; the ground floor windows have cast-iron frames containing five rows of seven panes, while the first floor has C20 casements. The engine house, attached to the right, is two storeys high, one window wide, and has C20 sliding double doors with a fixed window above. A five-window range adjoins the engine house, featuring similar cast-iron windows and some C20 replacements. A late 19th-century single-storey range has six windows with segmental brick arches under wooden lintels and cast-iron frames. This range includes C20 doors, one at the far right, and one window is raised above a door. A cottage with a 1793 datestone (likely repositioned) is set into the gable end, featuring a brick stack, a continuous facade and eaves level with the adjacent range, but a steeper, two-story roof. An additional range from the mid-19th century, with a pantile roof, is seven windows wide, featuring tie-bars and double doors on both floors, and a lower, pantiled loading bay.

The interior of the engine house retains a two-story arched recess for a former flywheel and an early 19th-century queen post roof structure. Heavy beams support the floors, resting on later 19th-century cast-iron columns.

Historically, a watermill previously occupied the site before the construction of the present structure. The mill became a centre for cottage industry, producing webbing for girths and other goods, essential to the local Crewkerne economy, with girth-web weaving documented from 1698. The mill was founded in 1789 by Samuel Spark and Bartholemew Gidley.