Monument record 1699/2/1 - Lowcross Mill

<1> Bott O J P, 1982, Cornmill Sites in Cheshire 1066-1850 Part 1, p.67 (Article in Journal). SCH975.

Mills recorded in the Domesday Book (see 3). A mill at Tilston worth 8 shillings, previously held by Earl Edwin, now held by Robert son of Hugh.

<2> Bott O J P, 1983, Cornmill sites in Cheshire 1066-1850 Part 2, p.54 (Article in Journal). SCH6105.

The two mills (the earlier is recorded in Domesday) were referred to as ‘Vetus et medium Molendina de Tilston; duo molendia’. Bott gives Lowcross Mill and Mill Field (recorded on the tithe award, see 4) as the location.

<3> Morgan P (ed), 1978, Domesday Book - Cheshire, /2/5 (Book). SCH1061.

<4> See map for surveyor, c.1837-51, Cheshire Tithe Maps and Awards, EDT 395/2 c.1841 (Maps and Plans). SCH3266.

<5> Turner R C, 1986, Edge - Notes on the Archaeological & Historic Landscapes, p.2 (Unpublished Report). SCH1099.

Lowcross Mill Farmhouse is a stone and brick mill dating from the early eighteenth century. It is derelict, but retains a large wooden and cast iron overshot wheel. Some gearing and the main drive shaft survive in other parts of the building. On the same site is a derelict stable or shippon, a partly ruinous bridge and the stone-setting for a sluice gate.

<6> Norris J.H., 1968, The Water-Powered Corn Mills of Cheshire, p.58 (Article in Journal). SCH6001.

The mill building is now used as part of the farm outbuildings and is brick with corrugated roof and generally semi-derelict. The wheel is in poor condition, approx. 18 x 5 ft, of high breast type, with an iron shaft, wood spokes, iron rim and some remaining wooden buckets. There is some of the old machinery.

<7> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 55195 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

A water-powered cornmill dating from 1769 or earlier, and heightened and extended in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The mill machinery of timber is probably late eighteenth century in date, with late nineteenth century cast iron repairs.

Built of sandstone and brown brick, though the roof and upper story is partially collapsed. The wheel-bay is of sandstone and brick with segmental- arched opening for the tail-race. 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. Inside, in south-east corner of the mill-bay, is a Kiln-hearth and chimney. An 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 pit-wheel 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 under-drift timber stone-nuts, one of which, with stones, remains. The mill-pool is drained and the leat silted

<8> Dodgson J McN, 1970-2, 1981, The Place-Names of Cheshire, Vol.IV p.31 (Book). SCH3228.

Possibly one of the Standish Mills mentioned in documentary sources in 1626.