The geography (and frequent rain) has created beautiful, verdant scenery which these days provides wonderful holiday respite for many of us,  but this is so very different to how life used to be in this region.  Advising us on lots of industrial history, much of it tying in with the mills, our host and guide Alan Stoyel, took us on a fascinating trip into an area of surprising and varied past industries which created towns for workforces in times of prosperity. 

  Our first port of call was Court Noke Farm, Pembridge   This was a very different setup to all the other watermills we were to see throughout our four day tour as the mill formed part of a brick built “model“ farm with barns on either side, constructed in the mid to late 19^th century. We were allowed to wander beside the watercourse, threading through the grounds as a water garden,  which was fed by a leat from the River Arrow and snaked around, through sluices, to power the watermill.  Only one pair of stones was required here as the mill was generally used to produce winter feed for the Hereford herd of cattle; farm machinery including a chaff cutter and a root pulper were also operated, being belt driven by the wheel.  Miles of Leominster (a company whose machinery cropped up time and again) had engineered the low-breast waterwheel and much complex iron gearing.  The wheel and its housing are in a very sorry state now but the owners,  Edward and Emma Bulmer,  have plans to restore the mill and farm complex within the next year. 

John inspecting the wheel at Staunton Mill

Before leaving Kingsland, we paused to view Waterloo Mill. Thought to have once had three sets of stones driven by a lay-shaft (like the one we had seen at Aymestrey Mill the day before) this derelict mill was built in 1815 on the Pinsley Brook.  Its 18ft diameter by 9ft wide low-breast waterwheel was another made, in 1861, by Miles of Leominster.

Alan next guided us to Leominster (yes, home of the machinery manufacturing firm,  Miles!) but oddly, still with the Pinsley Brook.  Originally supplying water to the Priory  Mill the Brook was filled in as part of the flood alleviation scheme in the early 1960s.  Corn, oil and, lastly, leather was milled until its closure in 1850.

We also learned that a hat factory, also powered by water,  had been sited nearby.  A short, but welcomed walk, took us to Pinsley Mill associated with Leominster Priory.  This mill had a chequered life as a corn mill, conversion to a cotton spinning mill destroyed by fire, to be rebuilt as a corn mill.  John Arkwright (son of the famous Richard) lived nearby and bought the mill in 1833, not to work himself, but leasing it to several consecutive millers*. In 1890 great modernising changes were made as tenant, Joseph Cooke, replaced the waterwheel with an Armfield “British Empire” 2ft 6” diameter turbine producing 49 horse-power; this was boosted by a gas engine with associated coal-gas plant 2½ to 3 sack roller plant using just two pairs of millstones.  In 1907 Mr Cooke purchased the mill and sold it on three years later.  Milling ceased during the Second World War.

*The entrepreneurial Mr Arkwright owned another mill close by in Etnam Street but the digging of a deep channel leading directly from the tailrace to Pinsley Mill helped to put this one out of business in 1864. 

Leominster is not without humour as witnessed in the park - a grass giant was rolling the lawns and proved an excellent poseur.  A fine iron bridge bearing the legend “Worcester Foundry  1844” bore our footpath over the River Lugg. The Rivers Arrow and Lugg travel around either side of Leominster, coming together just below the town to continue on as the River Lugg until it meets with the River Wye at Hereford  Back to the tour bus and on to meet our next mill owners.
 

For instance, the crown wheel above the tuns is in action as a very functional wine rack!  The small area of the stones floor is in service as a snug cum study.  In the passageway linking the kitchen to reception rooms a glass door in the wall reveals  the gearing, tools and unusual tentering arrangement which powered two pairs of stones on the ground floor (in what is now the dining room) where the 18th century hurst frame is still evident.  Outside, the iron low-breast waterwheel, cast by Charles O. Phillips of Gloucester and Newport, is still in reasonable order.  It measures 11 ft diameter x 3 ft 4 ½ ins and is of an unusual design having circular apertures in the shrouds.

The last two mills of the day, still in Kingsland, were viewed only briefly as the daylight was fading. Although little could be seen, both sported unusual features and were linked by the irrigation of the water meadows.   Lugg Mill at Kingsland boasted flying buttresses over two wheel races whilst the 15ft diameter Day House Farm Wheel stood stranded in splendid isolation beside an Iron aqueduct which had supplied water by means of a bypass sluice from Lugg Mill’s pond and leat.  These became in-filled and levelled some time ago.  The Lugg Mill building had had two waterwheels, one each on the north and the south sides and this is where the flying buttresses were sited over each wheel-race.

Up until the early 1940s, the Day House Farm Wheel drove farm machinery and a threshing machine.  A barn originally stood alongside and again much of the watercourse has been filled in and levelled off belying the fact that water travelled approximately three miles in the channels to and from the River Lugg.

Sunday 5^th October. The final day and just three mills to visit before a farewell feast at a good pub.  First up was Westbrook Manor Farm, Clifford  and, as its name implies, a different little watercourse, the West Brook. Here was another example of a farm mill whose wheel was on one side of a road with a very long shaft connecting from it to the machinery in a barn on the other side.  We learned that the shaft had not been removed but was now truncated where it entered the barn wall.  As the barn walls were surrounded by scaffolding due to it undergoing extensive building works for conversion to dwellings, Alan helped us to imagine the sitting of the gearing and mill machinery. it is understood that the waterwheel will be  preserved.

Home Farm, Dulas.  John presents flour to owners Mandy and Will

Home Farm, Dulas was built as a model farm on the Dulas Court Estate in 1865 and the mill building was integral to the barns around the farmyard.  This small, all brick watermill last worked in 1965 and the last miller, along with the farm owners Maddy and Will Bradley, was present to meet us and explain the workings.  The frame that held the sluices controlling the mill race/culvert from the nearby Dulas Brook is still evident but the sluices themselves need restoring This part of the brook also lent itself well to use as a sheep wash. 

 Despite most of the other farm buildings being converted for such diverse uses as holiday cottages and the farm machinery dispensed with, the mill happily retains its primary gearings and French burr stones.  The stones were connected to the waterwheel by means of arms from the wheel attached to a ring gear, and a short layshaft leading to another pair of gears  (and thence to the stones). Belt drives hitched to further layshafts into the barn drove the farm machinery for threshing, chaff cutting and animal fodder preparation.  Will and Maddy Bradley are keen to eventually get the wheel working again.

 Over lunch at the village pub we reflected over our twenty or so mills, isolated waterwheels, and all the considerate people who had allowed access to make this trip so memorable, not least of whom was Alan Stoyel who organised the whole venture and gave us, not only his time, an immense amount of knowledge of this lovely area’s industrial heritage.  Mick Edgeworth, our Chairman, presented Alan, and his delightful partner, Critchell, with several bottles of wine. Wherever we met mill owners or custodians, John Silman proudly presented a 2kg bag of Longbridge Stoneground Wholemeal Flour which Hampshire Mills Group members had milled. So, Critchell was also given a few bags of flour to replenish her larder as we had made short work of the cakes she had made and supplied with many pots of tea. 

More detailed descriptions of the mills appear in an illustrated handbook available from Andy Fish.

The maps used for this trip were:  OS Landranger 137 Ludlow, Wenlock Edge; 148 Presteigne & Hay-on-Wye; and 149 Hereford, Leominster and surrounding areas.