MARTIN Watts was the speaker at the recent meeting of Thorverton History Society and gave a talk about “Mills in the Devon Landscape”.

Martin started by explaining that he has had a long interest in mills and has done much work on mill restoration and conservation work. He has now given this up and does research and writing only.

So what is a mill? It is a building fitted with machinery for grinding corn or for a manufacturing process. Their locations can be found on old tithe and ordnance survey maps.

Old photographs, prints and drawings can provide images of old mills. Go back 100 years and mills often appeared on post cards and they were very popular with artists in the 19th century.

John Swete was a Devon vicar who sketched many mills in the late 1790’s.

There were more than 1,000 water driven mills but remains of the older ones are very rare. There are a few left from the middle of the 16th century.

Powered milling goes back to the time of the Roman invasion and large mill stones have been found at more than 200 sites. These stones were of such a size they would have needed water power to drive them.

Roman mills would have been a simple structure needing water power to turn the wheel and this then turned the mill stone via a gearing system.

Some had a horizontal wheel, doing away with the need for gearing but these are rare as they were prone to be washed away when the river providing the water flooded.

The earliest reference to a Devon mill is in the 880’s. It was part of the Royal Estate of Silverton and was possibly sited on the river Burn.

Doomsday records show there were 96 mills in Devon, mostly in the East Devon area coming down to the river Exe.

Mills need a controllable source of water as rivers rise and fall too much. Leats were dug by hand and could be many miles long. Weirs were often required with sluice gates to control the water flow.

Water would be directed either over or under the water wheel. An overshot wheel is up to three times more efficient than and undershot one but it needed a good head of water.

Corn is fed into the top mill stone which turns (the bottom stone is stationary) and this produces meal which is refined to make flour.

Two wheels could be run on the overshot method if sufficient power was available and gearing could be improved to increase output. Over the years the number of floors in mills increased and the grain was hoisted to the top using water power.

Lots of mills have been lost to fires. Thorverton mill was originally to the south west of the current building. This was built for E J Coombes in about 1885 but burnt down in 1897.

It was rebuilt in 1898 and closed in September 1989. The weir which provided the water for the mill was breached in the floods in December 1999.

Tidal mills were in operation in Dartmouth, St Budeaux in Plymouth and Fishers Mill at Clyst St George. A build up of tidal water could be released in a controlled way to power the mill.

Wind mills were not common in Devon and possibly no more than 100 were constructed. Torbay and North Devon were popular sites for these.

Over the years the materials used to construct the mills changed with iron replacing wood as it was more robust and lasted longer. The mill stones could be from Dartmoor, Gloucester, Wales or France and had different designs cut into them, some being more efficient than others. Granite was the cheapest stone but not the best as it was prone to getting shiny.

In addition to grinding corn, mills were also used in the cloth industry and Heathcoat’s factory in Tiverton had a massive water wheel transported down from Manchester.

There was a silk mill at Ottery St Mary and a paper mill at Bradninch. Finch Foundry at Sticklepath was originally a woollen mill but was converted to a foundry for tool making.

Robert Turner