Farm House and Outbuildings, High Mill Farm, Newby and Scalby, North Yorkshire

Description

NEWBY AND SCALBY

563/0/10012 FIELD LANE
18-NOV-09 SCALBY
(Off)
FARM HOUSE AND OUTBUILDINGS, HIGH MILL
FARM

II
Watermill, corn mill and miller's house, later used as a farm. Buildings mainly early C19.

MATERIALS
Coursed dressed sandstone, mainly herringbone tooled, pan tiled roofs.

LAYOUT
Principal buildings form a north south range with the mill to the centre, millers' house (evolved with at least four phases) to the north and a stable/cartshed to the south. The mill race (now infilled) approached from the west with the tail race presumably culverted under the yard to the east. Further agricultural buildings lie to the north, east and south west.

MILL
EXTERIOR
East elevation: Two taking-in doors and two windows with 4 pane fixed lights at first floor, all with keystoned lintels. Two ground floor double doors with later inserted lintels. End stack to the north serving the attached miller's house, brick built above the ridge.
Gables: Raised and coped with ornate kneelers. Attic windows (two to south, one to north) with keystoned lintels.
West Elevation: First floor doorway with near level access provided by the raised ground surface above the culverted mill race. Keystoned window to the north. Below this there is another keystoned window that is blocked, and one that is still open but inserted.

INTERIOR
Ground floor: Unequally divided into two rooms. The narrower southern room housed the waterwheel which from scarring from the wheel and the position of the mill race inlet appears to have been an overshot wheel of about 3.5m in diameter. The wheel pit is infilled. The larger room housed most of the gearing for the milling equipment mainly sited on the first floor. Although the gearing has been lost, evidence of the arrangement of the mill is retained in the timber work of the floor structure, the supporting beams and posts. The line shaft with belt drive wheels is of some interest, although it is considered to be a later insertion, probably later C19. The floor is flagstone and there is a blocked doorway into the attached miller's house.
First floor: Undivided room open to the rafters, the southern bay being lofted. There is a former connecting door into the attic of the attached miller's house. The roof structure has double purlins supported with two A frame trusses with double collars, joints being pegged. The tie beams and collars retain evidence of the arrangement of machinery and the roof structure includes additional beams that do not function as part of the roof but include bearings and attachment points.

MILLER'S HOUSE
PLAN
Single celled, single storey cottage with attic, possibly originally with a north gable entrance (now an internal doorway). Extended to the east with an unheated outshut under a catslide roof. Extended to the north with a two bay, two storey house with an east entrance leading to a dogleg stair in the southern bay, with heated rooms on ground and first floor in the north bay. Stair extends to the unheated attic room. The house is further extended to the east with a single bay 1.5 storey outshut.

EXTERIOR
East: The original cottage has a later roof dormer, its outshut has a single door and window, both with modern joinery. The house has wedge lintels to the door and first floor window, this retaining a four pane sliding sash. The outshut has small windows with modern joinery and a later dormer.
West: The original cottage has a large ground floor window with a keystoned lintel. Above there is a window that extends into a dormer, possibly adapted out of an attic loading door. The house has centrally placed windows at ground and first floor with wedge lintels and modern joinery. To the right there is a small stair window with a C20 sliding sash. Large C20 roof dormer.
North Gable: Raised and coped with shaped kneeler to the west and simpler kneeler to the east (the outshut). Ridge stack. Three inserted windows, that to first floor retaining a four pane Yorkshire sash.
South Gable: Raised and coped with shaped kneelers.

INTERIOR:
Ground floor retains six panel doors, those to first floor are four panel, all retaining original narrow architraves. Main first floor room retains an early C19 cast iron hob grate and flanking cupboards with four panel doors. Roof structure of the house is of sawn timber with pegged purlins, that of the cottage was not exposed at the time of survey.

SUBSIDARY ITEMS
Cart shed and stable: Attached to the south of the mill building with two round arched cart openings and two doorways with wedge lintels. The gable end is raised and coped with shaped kneelers. The rear (west) has been altered and extended. The stables have been altered with the insertion of stone slab pig feeders.

Building to south west: Low two storey building built into rising ground with a south gable with a keystoned doorway and shaped kneelers. The east wall has two further keystoned doorways. The side walls show clear evidence of rebuilding with rough concrete lintels and brickwork above. Replacement corrugated roof not of special interest.

Building to the east: Single storey stone-built agricultural building. At the time of inspection this had lost one of its shaped kneelers. Roof is of typical mid C19 or later iron bolted trusses.

Range to the north: A long single storey range that has undergone modern renovation and has been reroofed.

HISTORY
Historically, High Mill Farm was known as Scalby High Mill. Although there is documentary evidence of a mill in Scalby in 1164 (when it was valued at £6 and owned by the Crown) this cannot be securely linked to High Mill. However, High Mill is identified as one of the three Scalby mills in existence in 1609 that were sold by the Crown to Edmund Ferrers and Francis Philips. Ferrers and Philips, both of London, were speculators specialising in mills, becoming the largest owners of watermills nationally after the Crown. The current mill building is thought to date to about 1810, following the completion of Sir George Carley's five mile sea cut linking the Derwent to Scalby Beck. Although this cut was designed to relieve flooding on the Derwent, it also improved the water supply to the mills at Scalby. High Mill was advertised for sale in 1833, detailing that it had three pairs of stones, a corn screen, fan and a barley mill. The mill is marked as a corn mill on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map and appears to have continued working into the early C20 with BS Wilkinson listed as the miller in 1925. Marked as a mill on the 1914 map, by the 1928 map it was marked as High Mill Farm.

High Mill is a good example of a small rural improved watermill of the type that was developed from the late C18 and up until the mid C19. In contrast to their single storey predecessors, these were characterised by having the milling equipment concentrated on the first floor, well lit with glazed windows, with most of the gearing on the ground floor below. Later watermills tended to be larger still, borrowing innovations from textile mills. The overall quality of the build of High Mill appears good for a small rural mill, displaying some architectural pretension. The single bay cottage may have been built for the previous mill building, the two bay house is probably slightly later than the mill building because of the change in lintel style. The later outshut is of poorer quality, perhaps reflecting the falling income of the mill with the reduction of the price of flour following the ending of the Napoleonic Wars, or possibly that following the repeal of the Corn Laws in the mid C19.

SOURCE
Harrison J.K. (2001) "Eight Centuries of Milling in North East Yorkshire"

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
High Mill Farm is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* It is a complex of buildings mainly dating to before 1840.
* It has the additional interest that the complex includes a good example of an early C19 improved watermill displaying some architectural pretension and retaining some evidence of the original arrangement of machinery.
* For the historical interest that the current mill buildings are thought to be on the site of an earlier watermill dating back to at least 1609.

Reasons for Listing

High Mill Farm is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* As a complex of buildings mainly dating to before 1840.
* For the additional interest that the complex includes a good example of an early C19 improved watermill displaying some architectural pretension and retaining some evidence of the original arrangement of machinery.
* For the historical interest that the current mill buildings are thought to be on the site of an earlier watermill dating back to at least 1609.

External Links

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