During a tour of water-powered sites in Herefordshire I checked out a small sawmill on the Foxley Estate.
I haven’t found any history for this mill but it presumably provided planks and similar for general estate use.
Old maps show it present by 1886, fed by a long (artificial) pond, and the building is still shown on some modern OS maps.
However on walking in it had evidently been demolished, with a sea of nettles and undergrowth where it used to be on the right of the road - the pond is out of sight on the left.
Nevertheless I headed in anyway with the phone to see what remained.
There are two water outlets from the pond - this one is an overflow which disappears down a drain emerging further down the valley.
The other was the water source for the mill with a sluice gate at the end of a short culvert under the road.
Beyond this is a pit, which might once have housed a water wheel, with a water turbine.
The big pipe is the inlet, which was originally attached higher up on the back wall - water is still dribbling out of the hole.
The diagonal skinny rod would once have been attached to the short upright rod on the turbine and was for moving the control vanes from above.
The water seems to have emerged into the bottom of this pit in front.
This was as close I could get, although with a bit more time one could get next to the turbine without too much difficulty.
However it’s obviously a ‘Thompson double vortex’ type of Gilkes - I’ve seen about a dozen of these and tigger has posted a couple recently as well.
The label says something like Gilbert Giles and Co, Kendal with serial number 1131, which would make it an early example.
I haven’t found any history for this mill but it presumably provided planks and similar for general estate use.
Old maps show it present by 1886, fed by a long (artificial) pond, and the building is still shown on some modern OS maps.
However on walking in it had evidently been demolished, with a sea of nettles and undergrowth where it used to be on the right of the road - the pond is out of sight on the left.
Nevertheless I headed in anyway with the phone to see what remained.
There are two water outlets from the pond - this one is an overflow which disappears down a drain emerging further down the valley.
The other was the water source for the mill with a sluice gate at the end of a short culvert under the road.
Beyond this is a pit, which might once have housed a water wheel, with a water turbine.
The big pipe is the inlet, which was originally attached higher up on the back wall - water is still dribbling out of the hole.
The diagonal skinny rod would once have been attached to the short upright rod on the turbine and was for moving the control vanes from above.
The water seems to have emerged into the bottom of this pit in front.
This was as close I could get, although with a bit more time one could get next to the turbine without too much difficulty.
However it’s obviously a ‘Thompson double vortex’ type of Gilkes - I’ve seen about a dozen of these and tigger has posted a couple recently as well.
The label says something like Gilbert Giles and Co, Kendal with serial number 1131, which would make it an early example.
