Madey Mill

Madey Mill is a water mill located on East Street, with medieval origins and current buildings dating from the 17th century, extended in the 19th century. It is constructed from ham stone ashlar and features a plain clay tile roof with stepped coped gables, including a gabletted crown to the south and an ashlar chimney stack to the north. The mill is two storeys high with an attic and has a five-bay east elevation. The wheel is situated at the south end, in bay 1, with the leat feeding in at first floor level. The east elevation includes hollow-chamfered mullioned windows with hoodmoulds, featuring 2-light windows in bays 1 and 2, a lower 2-light window in bay 3, a 3-light window in bay 4, and a 2-storey projection in bay 5 under a lean-to roof, which has 2-light mullioned windows on the south return above a plain chamfered doorway. The south gable end has a matching 3-light mullioned window at each level. The west elevation is a 19th-century extension in lean-to form under a Welsh slate roof, with four bays of 3-light small-pane casement windows, the lower ones having voussoired segmental arched heads, except for bay 2, which features segmental-arched double doorways at each level, with the upper doorway in a small gable. Inside, there is an overshot iron wheel by Sparrows of Martock, approximately 3 metres in diameter, although all buckets are missing. The grinding machinery appears to survive at first floor level, but is not in working order. Madey Mill has been known by this name since the 14th century and was likely one of the two mills mentioned in the Domesday Book. In 1592, it was paired with a horse mill, passed to the Manor in 1637, and was probably rebuilt shortly thereafter. In the 19th century, it became one of several mills owned by the Hopkins family.