Industrial History Online
Wharfe corn mill
Key Words :- corn mill water powered
Viewing the Site :- visible from adjacent PRoW
Address :- Wharfe, Austwick, North Yorkshire, LA2 8DQ
Grid Ref :- SD 7803 6955
Co-ordinates :- Lat 54.121338 , Long -2.33763
Local Authority :- Craven District Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site derelict - some buildings remaining
Site Dates :- unknown -
Description and History of Site:-
The site is seen today as an overgrown, 3-bay rectangular building 17m long on the north-south axis by 5.5m east-west. In surviving wall masonry with two blocked windows and two blocked doorways in the west-facing wall. It stands to a maximum height of 2.4m. The east-facing and the north gable have long since fallen and internal walls have also collapsed. The northern part of the building may have been a drying kiln; the southern bay has a stone-flagged floor with massive foundations to the south gable, sturdy enough to have had a gable-mounted water wheel. Remains of a sluice into the beck, at right-angles to the gable suggest an undershot wheel. Running along the east wall is a stone-lined leat that would have fed the wheel and the dam which served the later cotton mill 400m or so further downstream.
It may well have been a medieval corn mill serving the hamlet of Wharfe with the drying kiln set north of the grinding floor. No specific details of its history have been located.
Further Reading and References:-
Johnson, D. and Hudson, P. 2002. 'An introduction to Wharfe Mills, Austwick' Yorkshire History Quarterly 8 (2), pp. 12-21.
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Grid Ref :- SD 7803 6955
Co-ordinates :- Lat 54.121338 , Long -2.33763
Local Authority :- Craven District Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site derelict - some buildings remaining
Site Dates :- unknown -
The site is seen today as an overgrown, 3-bay rectangular building 17m long on the north-south axis by 5.5m east-west. In surviving wall masonry with two blocked windows and two blocked doorways in the west-facing wall. It stands to a maximum height of 2.4m. The east-facing and the north gable have long since fallen and internal walls have also collapsed. The northern part of the building may have been a drying kiln; the southern bay has a stone-flagged floor with massive foundations to the south gable, sturdy enough to have had a gable-mounted water wheel. Remains of a sluice into the beck, at right-angles to the gable suggest an undershot wheel. Running along the east wall is a stone-lined leat that would have fed the wheel and the dam which served the later cotton mill 400m or so further downstream.
It may well have been a medieval corn mill serving the hamlet of Wharfe with the drying kiln set north of the grinding floor. No specific details of its history have been located.
Johnson, D. and Hudson, P. 2002. 'An introduction to Wharfe Mills, Austwick' Yorkshire History Quarterly 8 (2), pp. 12-21.
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Contributor :- David Johnson - 11 February 2018
Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © David Johnson
Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © David Johnson