A derelict part of St. Mary's Mill, Chalford

I had to make amends to Helena for forgetting to post her parcel yesterday, by taking the packge to the post office in the hamlet of Brimscombe, a couple of miles up the Frome valley towards Chalford. After lying around in bed for a couple of days it felt good to be out despite the very overcast conditions caused by the low grey cloud cover. As I drove slowly along the bottom of the valley I wonderd if I could find a suitable subject for the regular 'Derelict Thursday' challenge set by SarumStroller.

After a few odd diversions up small single tracked roads on either side of the narrow steep sided valley, I remembered St Mary's Mill complex lying just downstream of Chalford, where I have blipped before. At those times I was filming the exciting steam trains passing the level crossing signal box, set runs a few yards below the London Road, which is about fifty feet above the valley floor. Right beside the railway is the old canal lock which itself sits beside the River Frome. The small width of flat land is occupied by St. Mary's Mill, the old manor house, several cottages and some old industrial warehouses. Some of these later building have been repaired and re-purposed into contemporary businesses.

Sadly the old manor house is in dire repair in parts, with a massive old stone roof covered in a tarpaulin to keep the rain out and with large timber posts propping up the end walls of the building. I think part of this house must be fifteen century and would have been the clothier's home next to their mills that were their business premises.

A couple of years ago I was taking pictures here, when the owner of the building came to check on me. I persuaded her that I was not a potential thief and only interested in the buildings and she surprised me by going off to get the key to the main mill building. That allowed us in to see the original water wheel which still turns (on odd occasions), and was wonderful to behold. The rest of the building is well repaired and used by a very interesting architectural practice. (For a sunnier view of the two mill buildings together, see their website here)

At right angles to that building though is this much sadder mill, set alongside the river Frome, which lies directly behind it. I think it is an older structure but I don't have exact details. But you can see a range of different Cotswold stone used in the walls and mullion windows. I expect the roof was originally stone as well, but the cheap repairs have lead to the corrugated iron roof and plastic downpipes instead of the wrought iron originals, and the wall 'patch' behind it of chipboard down the side of the building. The collapse of the central window frame is just a portent of things to come, I fear.

My picture only shows a part of the brick chimney, which vented the coal smoke that fuelled the later steam era, rather than the original water powered period. I was standing on the lower slope on the other side of the valley, which demonstrates how narrow the valley bottom is at this point.


Edited from a web history here:
St. Mary's Mill, on the Frome below Chalford, took its name from the chantry in Minchinhampton church to which it belonged from 1338. It was a fulling-mill by 1548 when it was granted with the chantry's other possessions to John Thynne and Lawrence Hyde; the tenant was then Francis Halliday and in 1594 the property, comprising a messuage, 2 fulling-mills, a gig-mill, and a gristmill, was conveyed by Edward Halliday to Henry Winchcombe (or Whiting) of Upton St. Leonards, clothier.

St. Mary's Mill was one of the most complete complexes of buildings surviving in 1973. The principal mill building, a block of 4 storeys and attics with paired windows, on the west of the site, was evidently built by Samuel Clutterbuck c. 1820; one of its two massive water-wheels was preserved in 1973 together with a steam-engine which formerly powered the stick-making machinery. On the south of the site is an earlier building with mullioned windows to which an engine-house was added, probably also by Clutterbuck, who had installed steam-power by 1834. Another block of buildings in the centre of the site had been demolished by 1972.