Gileston Mill aka Talybont Mill

Gileston Mill, also known as Talybont Mill, is a largely intact water-powered cornmill with an attached miller’s house to the northwest and a secondary generator house to the southeast. The building comprises a single, long range set across a sloping site, with a leat (artificial watercourse) approaching from Caerfanell Brook on higher ground to the south.

The original section of the mill dates back to the 17th century and is constructed of colourwashed rubble stone, partly coursed, with a corrugated iron roof. A later house wing to the right features taller walls of snecked rubble, covered with a Welsh slate roof. A brick and slate-roofed cross range was added in 1923 on the west side. The original two-storey main range has a gabled upstand above the mill machinery. The upper floor has a small window to the left, boarded loading doors in the centre, and a casement window to the right. The ground floor features openings with cambered arched voussoirs and stone sills.

The attached later house wing has a projecting stack with a cornice and a single two-light casement window to the first floor and two to the ground floor, with the original entrance to the side. The generator house, projecting forward from the front left end, is a lean-to structure of brick, boarding, and corrugated iron. The left gable is roughly finished with a small-paned window above the door, which leads to a timber platform; the roof of this section has collapsed. The rear of the building has a cambered arched first-floor opening providing access to the original mill unit, and a wide arch for the culvert that passes under the building. A two-storey gabled cross wing separates this from the house wing to the left, featuring similar windows and a catslide roof.

Inside, the mill retains probable 17th-century A-frame roof trusses with large, flat through-purlins. A central truss was cut out to create the upstand over machinery installed around 1900, including a longitudinal spindle held in a softwood cradle. The upper floor supports a series of hoppers, bins, and spouts for grain delivery, accessed by hinge hatches for belt-driven sack hoists. The main first floor contains twin pairs of grinding stones flanking a vertical timber drive-shaft with gearing for belt-driven pulleys used in secondary operations. Open timber stairs and massive cross beams support a wide boarded floor. The ground floor houses a boxed-in timber drive shaft and cast-iron gearing for the stones, hoists, and other machinery, alongside chutes and hoppers. The wheel house is located within the south end of the building and contains an overshot water wheel with cast-iron spokes, bolted rims, and collars on a timber axle. The wheel is fed by a timber trough at an upper level on the west side, and the tail race is culverted and stone-lined to the east side.