The Old Mill (VILLAGE TALES EP. 8 )

Miller Westlake’s Westmill had been enjoyed as a ruin for many decades. 

People in the village that had built up around it could not imagine 

anything good would come of its restoration.

Not far to the west of our village lies the hamlet of Westmill. As its name implies at its centre is a mill, actually a watermill, though for many years it had been little more than a ruin. The mill, by all accounts, was one of the most prosperous in the area. The fast flowing stream on which it was built was steady and reliable.

The mill in its prime during the seventeen hundreds didn’t employ many but the owner, a Quaker called Josiah Westlake thought it his Christian duty to ensure the wellbeing of those who’s toil kept food on his table and money in his pocket. His workers were well paid and their families looked after, consequently his wealth was not begrudged and the community lived in harmony during Westlake’s life. The success of the mill attracted other trades, in particular a baker, one of the larger Westmill cottages being named The Old Bakery is evidence of that, as is Carters, a converted barn that was once, quite right, owned by a carter, what we might call nowadays a haulage company, but then it was just a man with a cart and a horse or two to pull it.

Westlake’s son took over after his father’s death but a ‘chip off the old block’ he wasn’t. He had never been comfortable working with his father, or those he worked alongside. Perhaps growing up in the comfort and the security of a successful business had given him a feeling he was better than those who made that life comfortable and secure. As an employer he was irritable and impatient. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing goes the saying and so it was with Samual Westlake who thought he knew all he needed to know. He would brook no criticism and take no advice from those who had worked in the mill all their lives. Morale amongst the workers suffered, some of the best hands left to work elsewhere and the mill’s reputation became questionable. At a time when industrialisation was beginning to impact the profitability of old mills across the country it was a burden no business could sustain.

When the mill ground its last sack of flour is uncertain. Rather than a dramatic closure it probably lingered on until the mill lay idle for longer periods than its mill wheel was turning. Eventually it was bought by a local farmer who cleared out the milling machinery and used the building for storage and to house itinerant workers when they were needed during harvest. The mechanisation of farming put an end to that and those same workers fled to the cities to roll steel or weave cotton. 

Time was unkind to the old mill, and nature less so. Ivy crept up the walls and into the building, loosening the stonework and twisting the frames. Rain beat through the broken glass and rotted the timbers. The sluices rusted so water was free to pass where once it was  stored to set the huge mill wheel turning. Leaves and broken branches fouled the gates so the millstream filled until its banks over flowed and parts of the mill itself were flooded. Winds and winter storms worked to dismantle all that man had built to harness its power. It was no longer a servant but master. While no one looked, or cared, it began to reclaim the mill, its streams and ponds until not much more than the iron wheel was the only evidence that the crumbling building was once a proud mill with a prosperous owner and contented workers.

There is a romanticism surrounding the remains of buildings, ruins half hidden by ivy, reclaimed by nature. Few ventured within the walls of the old mill for fear they might at last collapse. Small boys dared each other to do so, and courting couples found the privacy inviting. The mill pond became a favourite place for swimmers during warm summer evenings. At dusk the bats wheeled about and owls hooted from nearby trees. Another hundred years and there would be no sign that ever a building stood there, but that wasn’t about to happen.

The first we knew that something was afoot was when Paul, he who owns our village shop, mentioned that ‘someone’ had been seen at the old mill. This was hardly news, but when he described them as ‘men in suits’ eyebrows began to be raised. A week later, out of sheer coincidence of course, I was walking past the mill while walking a neighbour’s dog. Surrounding the mill was some of that high metal fencing used for building sites. It appeared the ‘men in suits’, which actually turned out to be two men and a woman, had been surveying the mill and the gossip at first was that it had been condemned as unsafe and was about to be demolished. This created a bit of a stir, even amongst those that had never seen it and one in particular that had never heard of it. But it was only gossip. Some days later signage on the fencing indicated that a firm of architects had been employed to do what, we didn’t know. This lack of knowledge as I have hinted at before is ‘grist to the mill’ when it comes to gossip and speculation. The front runner was that the mill and the water surrounding it was to become part of a flood prevention scheme so as to hold up water from downstream villages some of which had developments on the flood plain for which we would now have our unspoilt valley entirely ruined and as tax payers, pay for the privilege. The least likely, a rank outsider, was that it was going to become a mill again because modern processed flour was just not the same as it used to be and it was like gold dust to those from London who could afford it.

Surprisingly, some weeks later the rank outsider nearly won the race. It was essentially correct, but for the wrong reason. Over the next two and a half years the mill was restored to something resembling the original. The interior was entirely different other than the floors were on the same levels, new staircases and partitions had transformed the ruin into a well appointed four bedroomed house. Some, including Paul at the shop, much preferred the ruin as it was, and I admit to having some sympathy until all was revealed. 

The building seemed to have been completed but for some months activity centred around the waterways. Groups of experts interested in the flora and fauna busied themselves around the banks until nesting sites and other amenities were constructed. Then someone passing the mill saw the old wheel being craned into position having been entirely rebuilt. 

‘Purely cosmetic’ thought some, ‘Posh flour’ said others, but they were all wrong.

If I tell you the new owners were distantly related to Josiah Westlake, you may not believe me. If I told you the refurbished mill wheel was being put to work, you might think it was just another story but it would be true. 

After a century and a half Josiah Westlake’s mill was in production again, not flour but electricity. Connected to a generator via the wheel the gently flowing stream produces more than several roofs full of solar panels and all one sees is the mill wheel slowly turning, the ducks on the millpond and the trout in the stream. Electricity for the masses and a joy to behold. Josiah Westlake would be proud.

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

 on Spotify, Anchor FM, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, 

Google Podcasts, Breaker and other platforms. 

Written and read by Barkley Johnson.