Building record 6749 - Wincham Mill

<1> Vale Royal Borough Council, 2006, Vale Royal Borough Council's List of Locally Important Buildings (Report). SCH5487.

Criterion E: Buildings included in the Vale Royal Borough Council Historic Buildings Survey 1977 - 79

<2> Vale Royal Borough Council, 1977-79, The Vale Royal Borough Council Historic Buildings Survey Index Card, NCH/HB 27 (Paper Archive). SCH5481.

1870, storage mill and shop with garages. Buildings now used by North Western Farmers Ltd. The main buildings are not now used, but still have lifting machinery. A plate on the derelict building reads: J K 7 W HESKETH 1870.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1871-1882, Ordnance Survey County Series (Epoch 1) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire, SJ6874, 1877-1880 (Maps and Plans). SCH2462.

The mill is first depicted on this map. It records the mill as a corn and bone mill.

<4> See map for surveyor, c.1837-51, Cheshire Tithe Maps and Awards, EDT 247/2 c.1845 (Maps and Plans). SCH3266.

The mill is not depicted on this map.

<5> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER, Edwards R, 08/06/2015 (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

Sources (1) and (2) suggest that the mill was built sometime between 1845 and 1877-80.

<6> Historic England, 2015-, Notification Report of Decision not to Designate, Ellis V, 12/10/2015 (Written Communication). SCH7825.

Wincham Mill was constructed on the western bank of the Trent and Mersey canal during the late 1860s for Messrs James Kinsey and William Hesketh. A plaque recording the completion of the mill, now removed, was attached to the building and read – ‘J.K. & W. Hesketh, 1870’.

The work was carried out by two Northwich firms, the main building contractor was James Holland and the carpentry was undertaken by a Mr Drinkwater. All of the buildings were built using red brick obtained from the brick yards of Messrs Jabez Thompson. Both the corn and the bone mills were driven by line shafting and powered by a 30 H.P. condensing steam engine with a 10 ton, 16 feet diameter fly wheel, with the steam supplied by a 50 H.P. boiler.

The mill complex is shown on the 1880 edition of 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map (see 3), and depicts a group of buildings in a walled yard, including a stable block to the west, a free standing building in the centre of the yard, the bone and corn mills occupying the north-eastern corner of the yard, with the corn mill butting up against the canal. The boiler house, engine house, the two-storey bone mill, the warehouse, and the three-storey corn mill were all attached to one and other, virtually as different ranges of a single building.

Over the following decades the site continued to develop with new buildings in the yard reaching its fullest extent as depicted in the 1910 edition map (see 8). By 1939 the mill was operated using electric power and it would appear that milling was only occurring in the new corn mill built against the western side of the yard. After this date demolitions started to take place, with the chimney having been demolished by 1954, and the free-standing building by the time of the 1971 edition of the 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map.

By 1971, all milling had ceased and the site was operated as an agricultural supplies depot, owned by the North Western Farmers Ltd. An entry in the Cheshire Historic Environment Record (HER), records that the secondary corn mill was disused by August 1978, but was still in good condition and that the attached buildings were used for storage and as a shop; however, it also noted that the buildings near the canal (the former bone mill and corn mill) were derelict. The ownership of the site changed hands in 1982, when the present owners, the Tudor Griffiths Group bought the site for use as a builders merchants’ depot, and in 1993 the old and new corn mills, the associated corn riser, and the stables were demolished, leaving only the original bone mill extant.

<7> Historic England, 2015-, Certificate of Immunity (COI) Notification, Ellis V, 10/11/2015 (Written Communication). SCH7870.

<8> Ordnance Survey, 1909-1912, Ordnance Survey Second Revision County Series (Epoch 3) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire, SJ6874, 1910 (Maps and Plans). SCH4361.