11726

 

II  

Designated  

20/06/1989  

19/07/2000  

Park Mill with Miller's House, Carpenters Shops and Smithy  

 

Swansea  

Ilston  

Swansea  

Parkmill  

254368  

189293  

 

At the western end of the village of Parkmill, in a side road about 100m north of the A4118.  

Industrial  

 

The origin of Park Mill goes back to the early Middle Ages, and there are references from about 1300. The name refers to the adjacent park of the Le Breos family. A resident miller is first mentioned in 1428, together with mention of a millpond and mill machinery; the building at that date was thatched, and remains of it may be incorporated in the base of the present building. In 1585 the mill became part of the Kilvrough estate. A survey of 1650 refers to 'two water grist mills called the Parke Mills', let for £15 annually, to which farm tenants still owed suit. In the late C17 the mill was tenanted and operated by William Davies, whose descendants continued as millers until the C20, some of them noted characters in Gower history. The Davies family's house adjoining the mill itself is of the C19. The business of the mill widened in the C19 to include sawing, carpentry, wheelwrighting (c1860), and, in 1912, a smithy. Corn and animal feeds continued to be ground. The freehold of the mill was acquired by John Davies in 1920. The mill ceased to grind corn in the 1960s and to operate otherwise commercially in 1983, but without any loss of its historic machinery. The premises were then put under a trust as Y Felin Ddwr Crafts and Countryside Centre.  

The core of the historic group is the two-storey mill, about 7m square, with its 4.2m diameter and 1m wide breastshot wheel to the north side, and its miller's house to the south. The space to the north of the mill and around the wheel has been filled with light timber construction to form a carpentry workshop, the upper storey used for wheelwrighting. The mill and the millers house are in rubble limestone, each of two windows to the front, with slate roofs. The mill has two and three light upper casement and pivot windows with timber lintels to the front, and below a central buttress flanked by broad and stepped doorway to right and small window to left. The house has its front slightly advanced in relation to the mill, with mainly horned sash windows flanking a modern door. Stone chimneys at left and right. Modern extension at rear. Whitewashed rear to the mill with boarded door leading to the stone-lined leat. The space around the wheel and to the north is enclosed within a corrugated iron clad structure with a small pane glazed clerestory. There is a lean-to structure at the front of the mill supported on iron pillars. At right-angles, at the front, is the originally detached wheelwright's workshop, in uncoursed axe-dressed masonry, now serving as an entrance building, and a small brickwork smithy at its west end. The smithy has a roof of pantiles, which are a Kilvrough estate feature. The leat to the mill is on higher ground to the rear, and the tailrace is underground at the front.  

The waterwheel is restored, with a new axle. Cast-iron hub and rims and timber spokes and scoops. On the first floor twin millstones drive the grist mill (at west) and flour mill (at east), the chutes and hoppers for which are retained. The flour mill stones are complete. Above are the drive shaft, pulleys and gearing for the sack hoist and sawmill.  

A most unusual survival of a complete working mill of mediaeval origin with C19/C20 diversification into an integrated local industrial complex, retaining a substantial amount of machinery and equipment in working order.