Hulls Mill (EHER 29680)

Watermill. 18th to 19th century with adjoining building, converted into a dwelling during the 1960s. Mainly timber-framed and weatherboarded. Ground floor of painted brick. Grey slate roof. Three storeys and loft with central gabled lucam. There has been a mill on this site since Domesday.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: 18th to 19th century watermill, converted to a dwelling in the 1960s. Hulls Mill Gutted/House Conversion. <1> Watermill. 18th to 19th century with adjoining building, converted into a dwelling during the 1960s. Mainly timber-framed and weatherboarded. Ground floor of painted brick. Grey slate roof. Three storeys and loft with central gabled lucam. There has been a mill on this site since Domesday. <2> <3> 2008. Survey. The name Hulls Mill may be a corruption of Hall Mill or more likely, as at Kingston upon Hull, an obsolete word describing a waterway running under a road. Its millers include Edward Mumford (who was bankrupt in 1849), Henry Ardley (1855), the Metson family and Metson and Playle from 1863 to he end of the century, W.F. Beales (1906) and Charles Dupont of Bures who paid £800 for it in 1908. In 1911, when it was Hulls Roller Mills, the miller was C. Wallace. Soon after WWI it was acquired by Hovis. Around this time the wheel was removed and a turbine and producer gas engine installed. The turbine by Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon, was bevelled to a horizontal shaft, one end of which drove a single pair of stones, serving the needs of local farmers, while the other end drove a dynamo which powered the lights in the mill, mill house and mill cottages. Whereas, the gas engine drove the roller mills and the centrifugal dressing machines using a long shaft running from one end of the mill to the other. The gas engine was replaced in the mid 1930s by a National oil engine started by air compressor, the latter powered by the turbine. This engine drove a 110 volt DC generator, connected to an electric motor driving the main shaft. During the early years of WWII the mill was provided with Turner roller mills but had closed by 1953, being one of the last country flour mills in the county. Through most of the period it was in the ownership of Hovis the mill was managed by Harry Noble and later by his son John. The mill and adjoining granary was converted to residential use during the 1960s and little internal technology was thought to survive. Externally the mill does not appear to have been extensively altered and it survives as a large 3½ storey, 5 bay, part brick but mainly timber framed and weatherboarded mill. It is built astride the River Colne and east of the point where Hulls Mill Road fords the mills’ by-pass leat. Attached to the western end wall is an in-line two storey weatherboarded (former) granary and to the rear a number of small lean-tos most probably once used as fuel stores. The main roof is covered in slate with gables east-west to the front and three perpendicular gables to the rear. A gable ended, weatherboarded lucam projects (S) above the eaves from the central bay of the façade and sits above a central taking in door at first floor. The ground floor storey is clad in brick (Flemish bond) and includes a 4 window range and an off-centre battened heck door. The windows of the ground and first floor are typically 19th century vertical sashes with small panes (4 x 4 or 3 x 4) with simple architraves, while those in the upper storey have smaller openings with horizontal sliding sashes. The windows in the rear elevations and those of the adjoining granary are mainly small horizontal sliding sashes although a few later windows have been inserted. Internally the main structural posts of the softwood (Baltic pine) timber frame are exposed, while features such the sack trap apertures, which rise through the entire building, have been preserved through glazing. The sluice gate, Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon turbine, the gearing and horizontal drive remain in situ within the wheel pit (although the drive shaft no longer survives outside the wheel pit). The set of stones (Barron and Son, Gloucester) mentioned by Benham and kept for local farmers, remain in situ on first floor although the stone furniture and the gears under-driving the stones have been removed . Few other features remain apart from several pulleys and part of the sack hoist mechanism. The roof structure is a simple side purlin roof with a ridge piece and many replacement common rafters. The granary in common with the mill is part brick and part timber framed. A taking in door, now blocked, is situated in the eastern bay and a set of elevated cart doors, built to coincide with the level of the cart, remains in the west end wall. The joists of the first floor are strongly built, narrowly spaced and strengthened with cross bracing, while central to and under pinning the floor is a large brick pier. The sluice gate to the north of the mill has been renovated but still mostly retains its historic mechanism. The sluice gate operated three guillotine type gates all opened using a pulley and wire system named the ‘Handy Hoist Mechanism’. To the east of the Hulls Mill lies the former mill house (EHER 29681) a C16 or earlier house associated with a predecessor of the present building. Present Use: Private residence Condition: Good Order A large later 18th to 19th century water and later steam/oil powered mill of limited significance due to the removal of the bulk of its mill gearing during conversion works to residential use. However it does survive as an interesting local example of a late 18th century corn mill which has not been unsympathetically enlarged or altered and still retains some elements of its historic apparatus, albeit as decorative features within the later conversion. <4> See also: <5>