Former Paper Mill at Usk Vale Mill

Former Paper Mill at Usk Vale Mill

A large mid-19th-century paper mill comprising parallel wings oriented east to west, mostly single-storey, built against a bank at the west end where a watercourse feeds sluices into the building. The two central wings, partly two-storey at their west end, are the main surviving components and formerly housed the moulding and air-drying processes. A house (Usk Vale Mill, probably mid-19th century but modernised in the late 20th century) and further wings are attached to the south side. Additional wings extend to the northwest (a finishing house) and northeast, with a warehouse added at the northeast corner. The central wings are constructed of random rubble sandstone with substantial brick repairs and corrugated asbestos-cement roofs, while the outer wings are generally brick with asbestos-cement or slate roofs, or clad in corrugated iron.

The two central wings have sluices entering the building below ground at the west end. The north-central wing features three 20th-century cowls and a mid-20th-century roof, with the creasing of an earlier roof visible in the wall of an added upper storey at the west end. The wing has a short added upper storey of concrete, laid wet behind shuttering, set back from the west end. The south-central wing is set back in an L-shape and is two storeys at the west end where it is clad in corrugated iron sheets. Its east-facing front has 20th-century replacement windows. The north-central wing has double boarded doors at lower right, a projecting steel beam above the window, and an opening under a corrugated iron canopy. The south-central wing features a late-19th-century doorway at lower right with brick surround and segmental head, and a replaced door. The main window is replaced under a later-19th-century segmental head, with a narrower fixed light further left and a former vent, now glazed, beneath the apex. To the right of the north-central wing is a late-19th-century rubble stone wing, probably built as a finishing house, in whose gable end is a window under a brick segmental head and a blocked opening further right. Set forward at the right (north) end is a higher brick warehouse with an opening beneath the apex and the building date of 1904 in relief on a cast-iron plate in the gable end.

The north side of the warehouse has four recessed bays with sawtooth cornices and contains three small-pane fixed windows under segmental heads and a boarded door in the bay to the right. A large brick tank projects from the left bay. The west gable end has a full-height bay weatherboarded above corrugated iron doors with an opening in the gable. The wing to the right has a single blocked doorway.

The north side wall of the north-central wing is rebuilt in brick and has a brick lean-to at the centre. To the right of this is a narrow passage leading to a doorway under a steel lintel, where the wing is wider and has an upper storey with two fixed lights facing east and a further fixed light left of the lower storey roof.

The finishing house on the northwest side of the north-central wing is higher, with a brick west gable end and south side wall, and a rubble stone north wall and west gable end. In the south wall is a blocked oculus at upper right. The east gable end has a large segmental-headed window to the left and tall boarded doors to the right beneath a steel lintel, with the gable clad in corrugated iron. Attached to the north angle is a rubble stone wall retaining the higher ground on the west side. The north side wall contains a central sliding boarded door with a brick jamb, suggesting the opening is rebuilt or enlarged. On the west side, the gable end is built against a high bank and is continuous with the gables of the central and south wings.

The west facade displays four visible gables, ivy-clad on the south side. The finishing house to the left has a corrugated iron gable. The north-central wing gable is clad in corrugated iron and asbestos-cement sheets, with its upper storey clad in asbestos-cement sheets. The south-central wing has a corrugated iron door above a sluice, with the building opening not visible.

On the south side of the central wing is the modernised house, behind which is a gabled bay clad in corrugated iron with full-height double doors under a shallow canopy. Further behind is another corrugated iron wing, on whose south side is a short brick wing with two gabled bays facing east. These are only partly roofed and have three-light windows under segmental heads in the gables and a segmental-headed doorway at lower right.

The north-central wing has a steel-trussed mid-20th-century roof. At the west end of the south-central wing is a turbine said to be in situ but inaccessible. The warehouse has wooden king-post trusses. The northwest finishing house has a light steel-trussed roof. At the west end is a stone wall dividing the working floor from a lower despatch bay at the east end.