Listed Building: LOWCROSS MILL (1250992)

SJ 45 SE 1/54 EDGE TILSTON ROAD Lowcross Mill II Water-powered cornmill, 1769 or earlier, heightened and extended later C18 and C19, on an ancient mill site. The machinery of timer is probably late C18, partly renewed in cast iron late C19. Ashlar sandstone and brown brick; roof partly collapsed, partly cast iron. Two storeys and attic, the upper floors partly collapsed; three bays. The wheel-bay, north, is of sandstone and brick with segmental- arched opening for the tail-race; the brick-fronted mill-bay, centre, has a timber-lintelled cart-opening with doors removed; the later storage-bay of brick, south, has a doorway blocked in brick and a 2-pane casement with glass removed; the second storey has a three-light oak-mullioned window with glass removed and a damaged opening to the wheel and mill bays and an opening to the store-bay. The collapsed roof to the wheel and mill bays has gables of nearly 45° pitch and a damaged intermediate truss of oak; the upper floors and lower-pitched roof structure of the storage bay are intact. The north gable end has a 3-light window with glass removed to the storey above the wheel-chamber and a window opening to the attic; the south gable-end has a central loading-door to each storey and a blocked doorway flanked by blocked window-openings. The ground level is almost one storey higher at the rear, east, with a penstock opening, a damaged doorway to the second storey of the mill-bay and a window-opening to the storage-bay; there is stonework between the penstock and the doorway and flush quoins at the south-east corner of the lower part of the mill-bay, against which the added storage-bay projects slightly; a short chimney above the kiln-hearth. Interior: Kiln-hearth and chimney at the south-east corner of the mill-bay; inscribed stones in the rear wall read R Fell/Miller 1769, G.B. and, roughly carved, J.B. The machinery, the feature of greatest interest, stands in a damaged frame of oak; the high-breast waterwheel circa 15 feet in diameter by 5 feet wide has cast iron shaft and rim and eight pairs of timber spokes; the buckets are missing; the cast-iron bevelled pitwheel is circa 8 feet in diameter, driving a cast-iron wallower circa 3 feet diameter on a timber vertical shaft; the spur wheel of timber circa 10 feet in diameter, with cogs now missing, drove two pairs of underdrift timber stone-nuts, one of which, with stones, remains. The mill-pool is drained and the leat silted. Listing NGR: SJ4705550337