Summary
Water-powered cornmill, early C18 with possible earlier origins, and an attached corn drying kiln and store, probably C18.
Reasons for Designation
Coombe Gill Mill, of early-C18 date with an attached corn drying kiln and store, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* an early-C18 corn mill and corn drying kiln that retains significant original fabric including the original plan-form;
* a good example of a small-scale water-driven corn mill supplying a local market, whose function and process flow is clear and legible;
* its simple Cumbrian vernacular style, picturesque location and possession of a water wheel combine to produce a building of considerable aesthetic quality.
Historic interest:
* for its historic association with the important national artist John Constable as the subject of his 1806 pencil and water colour drawing;
* the subject matter for other notable artists, it illustrates the Lake District as a source of picturesque inspiration for artists and writers during the late C18 and C19.
Group value:
* it benefits from a spatial, functional and historic group value with the adjacent and contemporary packhorse bridge, which provided access across Coombe Gill to the mill.
History
It is possible that there was a water-powered corn mill on this site in medieval times when the land belonged to Furness Abbey. The first specific mention of a mill at Borrowdale is in a document of 1606. However, the first secure documentation for the presence of a mill in this location occurs in 1727 in a deed associated with the nearby Chapel Farm, when Coombe Gill Mill is recorded as passing to a William Browne; the document also mentions a corn drying kiln and a house. The kiln remains today but the former location of the house is unclear. Various other wills and deeds record subsequent owners and tenants of the mill, notably the Jobson family. The first cartographic depiction of the mill is the 1842 Tithe Map, upon which it is shown as a rectangular building with the narrower drying kiln attached to its north side, and it is also shown, as an L-shaped building, on an estate map in 1843. The Ordnance Survey (OS) first edition 1:2,500 map of 1864 annotates the building as ‘corn mill’. By the time of the OS revision in 1890, the building is annotated ‘Saw Mill’, and had clearly changed function. We understand that the sawmill was used to provide timber for the quarry at Honister, and that it closed in the early C20. Truncated elements of the associated water management system including a mill race, reservoir and launder base remain to the south of the mill.
From the late C18, artists and writers came to the Lake District to capture its picturesque beauty, and Coombe Gill Mill became the subject matter of various artists, and later photographers. The earliest known depiction is a pencil and watercolour in 1806 by John Constable (1776-1837) made during one of three tours he made to expand his repertoire of picturesque scenery. The artist is famous for his landscapes, which are mostly of the Suffolk countryside, where he was born and lived. He made many open-air sketches, using these as a basis for his large exhibition paintings, which were worked up in the studio. He was largely self-taught, and developed slowly; in 1800 he was a student at the Royal Academy schools, and he exhibited from 1802 at the Royal Academy in London, and later at the Paris Salon. Constable was influenced by Dutch artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael, and the works of Peter Paul Rubens and Claude also proved to be useful colouristic and compositional models. However, the realism and vitality of Constable's work make it highly original. In about 1809 the mill was drawn by William Green of Ambleside (1760-1823) who also reported that it had been flood damaged in 1795 and significantly repaired. This drawing depicts the building much as it is today, with both the mill, wheel pit, and kiln clearly identifiable. The mill was drawn in the 1870s by the artist James Burrell Smith (1822-1897) water colour and landscape artist who produced a lithograph of the building viewed from the north. This shows the mill building and the attached water wheel, but it largely matches Green’s drawing of 1809 and is thought to accurately portray the present building. Early-C20 depictions of the mill include a postcard which shows it to be in operational condition with the wheel in situ, and a photograph of 1930s date shows the western elevation and interior; the wheel is not operational, and the sawmill had closed, but it indicates an C18 mechanism similar to that of Boot Mill in Eskdale.
In the mid-C20 the building, in use as a bracken store, was acquired by the Murray family, and in 1946 it was converted to a simple holiday dwelling/climbing hut. The building was generally repaired and re-slated, the original double entrance was modified to a single door, and windows were inserted to the former kiln. Light-weight partitions were introduced to the interior to create three small bedrooms and a bathroom, and the kiln floor was lowered. It is understood that three mill stones were re-used and incorporated within and outside the building, and that dated and initialled carved wooden balusters which supported the milling platform, were retained. Before 1939, the C19 water wheel had been removed to power an electric turbine in Grange Village; it was returned in the 1950s and has since been refurbished and replaced in its original position, and the wheel pit outer wall rebuilt.
Details
Water-powered cornmill, early C18 with possible earlier origins, and an attached corn drying kiln, probably C18.
MATERIALS: rubble stone construction with graduated slate roofs.
PLAN: the rectangular mill building is oriented roughly east to west and has an attached rectangular corn drying kiln projecting north from the north wall; there is an attached north lean-to, and a wheel pit with water wheel attached to the west elevation.
EXTERIOR: the single-storey mill building stands on the eastern bank of the Coombe Gill, a tributary of the River Derwent. It is of rubble stone construction with large alternating quoins, beneath a pitched roof of slate laid in diminishing courses; large weighting stones hold down the eaves. The east gable has a long, centrally placed, timber lintel with a slate drip mould above, that formerly housed an original double-width entrance; today (2020) there is a single opening fitted with a timber boarded door, and a window to the right. A brass plaque screwed to lintel records the deed of 1724. The south elevation has a single inserted window to the left end. The massive west gable retains evidence of several phases, and it has an attached stone wheel pit containing a six-spoke waterwheel with iron shroud plate, and flaunch, timber axle, spokes, buckets and sole plate. To the right is an inserted glazed casement window fitted into an opening with a narrow timber lintel and stone sill. The north elevation is also of substantial build and has the remnants of a timber lintel and small blocked window beneath the eaves. The mill’s north elevation is mostly obscured by the attached corn drying kiln, whose east and west elevations have a single small window just below the eaves, and the north east corner is curved. The asymmetric north gabled elevation has a rectangular window a little to the right of the apex with a drip mould below, and below is an attached lean-to addition.
INTERIOR: the original simple plan-form of the mill building is largely retained. It has exposed, painted rubble walls and a boarded ceiling. The west wall is slightly bowed with a rough horizontal slab mid-way up indicating the former presence of the internal water wheel. There is also a rough plinth with projecting stones probably used as supports for the timber superstructure that formerly housed the milling apparatus. The water wheel axle entered through an aperture that is considered to lie below the present floor level. The original mill bedstone with a flat circular lip has been reused as the base for a stove. The central truss of the original roof structure is visible; its principal rafters are hafted together at the apex and jointed to the tie beam with a pair of vertical braces rising from the top of the beam to the undersides of the principals. The timbers had been hewn with an adze rather than sawn, and there are assembly marks on the western face of the tie beam coinciding with the position of the mortice and tenon joints for the two braces. The initials ‘DJ’ presumably one of the Daniel Jopsons who had the mill between 1741-1817 and 1861 into the early-C20 are inscribed in several places including the stone threshold. A small bathroom compartment has been formed of light-weight partitions. The attached kiln is divided into three small rooms by similar light-weight partitions, and has painted exposed stonework and roughly chamfered roof purlins. The lower floor of the kiln is accessed externally through the attached lean-to building; it has a north opening with a large, crude stone lintel, and the interior has exposed rubble walls with lime mortar pointing. Its south wall is of rectangular slates laid in semi-regular courses incorporating the wrought iron surrounds of the fire hole that heated the floor above. The ceiling is formed of stone slabs spanning the width, and fragments of perforated kiln floor remain. The attached lean-to has a rubble cross wall dividing the space into two, and a replacement roof structure of sawn timbers.
SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: there is a stone slab bench set against the gable and a mill stone reset into the ground. To the south east corner there is a short section of attached wall, and a raised plinth and stone steps, the latter incorporating a mill stone. At the north east corner there is a set of stone steps which lead to the lower floor of the kiln.
