Building record 6232/1/1 - Ashton Mill

A well preserved example of an adaptation of a water mill for hydro-electric power (later also an oil-fuelled engine) for the Rothschild private estate and its village. The C18th-C19th corn mill buildings still house the electric plant which was installed c.1900. Housed the Dragonfly Museum until 2001

{1} Ashton Mill is a former water-powered corn mill, composed of a group of C18th and 19th stone and brick buildings. In 1900, the mill ceased to be used for corn grinding and the water power system was converted to generate electricity to supply the Rothschild house and village. An oil engine was also installed. The mill buildings are in excellent state of preservation and the generating plant is reportedly intact within the west end of the brick built mill building and an adjacent stone-built annexe.

{2} Post medieval brick building with tile roof; the building is still used although not as a mill.

{4} Watermill, now museum. Probably C17 origins, mainly C18 and C19, converted for generation of electricity early C20. Squared coursed limestone and orange brick with Colleyweston slate roof. Originally rectangular plan. 3 storeys. 5-window range, at ground and first floor, of sash windows, with glazing bars, under flat brick arches. 6-window range, at second floor, of square casements with glazing bars. Early C20 doors and doorways to centre and left under shallow brick arches. Central C20 door, to second floor, is below gabled and weatherboarded loading gantry. Blocked windows to first floor left and right of centre. Evidence of single-storey stone building to right hand corner of main range. Ground and first floor brickwork is probably C18; the second floor was probably raised C19. C19 brick lean-to extension to left and early C19 stone lean-to to right. Mill race passes through centre of building with sluice to the right. Rear elevation is similar to front elevation with casement windows with glazing bars under flat brick arches. Lean-to to left is open fronted with sluice mechanism rising from a wooden platform. C19/early C20 single storey-stone range projects at right angles to right. Interior has machinery for generating electricity installed by Rothschild family early C20 when the mill ceased to be used for grinding corn.

{6}{8}{10} A three storey brick building with Collyweston slate roof. Originally a corn mill, converted in 1900 by the Rothschild family to supply d.c. electricity to the newly built mansion and farm at Ashton Wold, as well as piped drinking water to the buildings there and to the village of Ashton. The original two Gilks water turbines, two 1937 Blackstone oil engines (replacing the original Crossley engine), overhead shafting, pumps and electrical equipment remain in situ. Now part of the National Dragonfly Museum.

{7} Former water-powered corn mill, later adapted to form electricity generating and water pumping station for the Ashton Estate. Late C18 and C19, incorporating some surviving fabric from an earlier mill and then altered and extended c1900. The architect is not known, but the electricity and water supply systems were designed by Walter Morris Thomas, engineer, for Lord Rothschild.
MATERIALS: Orange brick and coursed squared limestone beneath a Collyweston stone slate roof covering.
PLAN: Original rectangular plan, later extended to form L-shaped complex with additions to either end of the original water mill and a lower rear wing running at right angles to the main range. The original mill straddles the water supply channel leading from the River Nene.
EXTERIOR: The main building is of three storeys and seven bays, the front elevation with five glazing bar sash windows beneath flat brick arches to each of the lower floors and six upper floor window openings with glazing bar casement frames. There are early C20 doors and doorways to centre and left under shallow brick arches and a central C20 door to the second floor set below a gabled and weatherboarded loading gantry. There are blocked windows to the first floor to the left and right of centre. There is evidence of a single-storey stone building to the right hand corner of the main range, whilst the ground and first floor brickwork appears to be of late C18 date. The upper floor appears to have been added or raised in the C19 as were the extensions to the left and right-hand ends. The rear elevation is detailed in similar fashion to the front, its window openings with glazing bar casement frames beneath flat brick arches. The lean-to to the left-hand side left has a weather-boarded front, as has the C20 flat roofed entrance extension to the centre of the elevation. Further right is a tall weather-boarded lean-to which extends up to the cills of the upper floor windows of the mill. A railed and boarded walkway extends across the rear elevation through which project the heads of the three sluice mechanisms regulating the overflow water from the mill race. The water supply for the turbines flows into the turbine chamber beneath the centre of the mill, and the controlling sluices are located beneath the wooden walkway.
INTERIOR
The main mill building was altered at ground and first floor level to accommodate the electicity generating and water pumping and purification equipment installed c1900. The first floor of the mill retains heavy bridging beams, some with timber props at mid-span, closely spaced joists and boarded floors with former apertures used in its corn milling phase for chutes, drives and hoists now boarded over. The upper floor is formed in the roof space, the roof trusses of queen strut form with collars dovetailed into the principal rafters. The trusses have secondary tie beams set above floor level apparently to help create storage bins for grain prior to millings on the floor below. The ground floor of the mill and the original wheel chamber were remodelled and strengthened to receive twin turbines manufactured by Gilkes and Co. of Kendal, twin dynamos built by The Wolverhampton Construction Company, a Smith and Vaile pump and two Alley and Maclellan pumps. The turbine drives powered line shafting which drove the dynamos and the water pumps. The mill also housed two Blackstone oil engines which were installed in the 1930's as replacements for an earlier engine, and like their predecessor, were used to supplement the turbine drives in times of water shortage. All of the machinery, the line shafting and belt drives remain in situ, together with the switch gear and control dials housed in a control panel on the south wall of the mill. The east end of the mill houses water storage and water treatment tanks arranged on two levels. Each water pump had its own associated tank, one pump being used to pump river water to the estate water tower at Ashton Wold for the farms and water troughs. Another pump was used to pump water from a well to filtration and chlorination tanks in a nearby field, and then to water softening and storage tanks in the mill borehole. The third pump transferred the purified water to an intermediate reservoir, and then to the water tower to be delivered by gravity to the estate dwellings.
HISTORY: The Rothschilds became the first landowners in the country to provide their tenants with the luxury of both running filtered water and electricity. Lord Rothschild had employed the marine engineer Walter Morris Thomas to design an electricity generating station for his estate in Tring. This was a steam-powered installation housed within a former Silk Mill. At Ashton, Thomas was engaged c1900, to design and install a state-of-the-art electricity generating station together with a water supply pumping station both powered by water turbines. The mill operated until it became more economical to supply the estate with power and water from national supply grids. The machinery remained unused in situ for many years, but underwent restoration in the late C20 as part of a museum project centred on the mill.
SOURCES
Map accompanying Conveyance of Ashton Estate to Lionel Rothschild (1860), Northamptonshire Record Office 5173.
Map of Ashton Wold (c1901), in Ashton Wold House.
Ordnance Survey maps 1886, 1900, 1926.
Rothschild, Miriam, The Rothschild Gardens (1996), 82-107 & 169.
'The Hon. Nathaniel Rothschild', obituary in The Times, 15 October 1923.

Ashton Mill, Ashton is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* INNOVATION: Ashton Mill provided electricity and piped water to the buildings on the Ashton Estate. This provision is believed to be the earliest such advance in the context of an estate community and anticipates the development of similar levels of provision at regional and national levels later in the C20.
* HISTORY: Ashton Mill is a central component of the Ashton Estate electricity supply and water supply systems, a key element of a newly-created model estate developed by the internationally significant Rothschild family, during a period of agricultural depression which had signalled the end of significant investment in estate development elsewhere in England.
* COMPLETENESS: The electricity generating machinery and water pumping, purification and storage equipment at Ashton Mill are complete and very well-preserved. Few electricity supply and water pumping stations of any period retain their original plant and equipment and in this context, Ashton is an exceptional survival.
* GROUP VALUE: Ashton Mill has high functional group significance at the heart of the Ashton Estate electricity and water supply systems, which linked all of the estate buildings. Group value is particularly strong with the Water Tower at Ashton Wold which was the key intermediate structure in the water supply system.

{9} History:
1086 Two mills recorded at Ashton rendering 40s and 325 eels
1291 Mills part of the Abbey of Peterborough's estate and remained so until the Dissolution
1553 Manor of Ashton and its mills were sold by the Crown to Hugh and Thomas Lawe
1602 Four mills at Ashton, three were corn mills under one roof and the other was a fulling mill
1771 Peter Collins, miller and merchant of Islip insured the water corn mills at Ashton
1900 Mill converted by the first Lord Rothschild into a generating works to supply electricity to his new mansion at Ashton and to provide a piped water supply for mansion, farm and the village. The waterwheel was removed and replaced by two Gilkes turbines. These were supplemented by oil engines when there was insufficient water in the river to drive the turbines.
1950s Alterations to the River Nene removed the chief source of power and the estate changed to taking the public supply for both water and electricity. Mill became derelict.
1995 Mill and machines restored in connection with opening the National Dragonfly Museum in the outhouses of the mill
2002 National Dragonfly Museum vacated premises due to withdrawla of low cost lease

The mill is of three storeys and seven bays, with brick walls and Colleyweston slate gable roof from which a large weather-boarded lucam protrudes over the central bay of the upstream (west) side. The fenestration is uneven. There are 12-light sash windows at ground and first floor level, including one directly under the lucam, whilst the second floor windows are smaller with only 6 lights. The lower part of the south west corner of the main building is of stone possibly from an earlier mill building on the site. Adjoining this end is a stone building with gable single-pitched roof (also of Collyweston slate) dating from the 1900 alterations to the mill. Inside the mill, the turbines, oil engines, overhead shafting and drives to the electric generators and pumps are all in situ as are the electrical switchboard and the water treatment equipment. In 1900 the waterwheel was removed and replaced by two Gilkes turbines. Photos of exterior and interior of mill.

{11} Former water-powered corn mill, adapted circa 1900 to form electricity-generating and water-pumping station for the Ashton Estate. Housed the Dragonfly Museum until 2001, since unoccupied. Historic England grant aided localised urgent repairs of building fabric in 2014/15 and urgent mill machinery repairs in early 2016. The mill remains unused and it is for this reason the mill remains on
the Heritage at Register.

{13} The Domesday survey of 1086 showed Ascetone as having two mills. This mill is shown un-named on Thomas Eyre's map of 1779. In 1900 the mill was converted by the first Lord Rothschild into a watermill, to provide a permanent piped supply for the village of Ashton and the group of houses at Ashton Wold. In addition it was to supply electricity to the main buildings, including the farm. (Lord Rothschild was a pioneer in the use of electricity in dairy farms and was one of the first owners to try out milking machines and to churn with the help of electricity). The Ashton Mill machinery was installed by Walter Morris Thomas, a ship's engineer.The pumps were used every day, and on average 4,000 gallons of drinking water was used and pumped every day. Originally engine drive was by an old fashioned Crossley, ignited by a blow lamp and with two large wheels. When that was dismantled the present Blackstone engines were installed. These are 26 horsepower, diesel engines.

{14} This Domesday mill site was used for fulling and grinding until 1900. It was converted to provide piped water and electricity to Lord Rothschild's mansion. 2 turbines and Crossley Hot Bulb Engine were installed (latter was subsequently replaced by 2 Blackstone diesel engines) to power the Crompton Dynamos/piston pumps.

{16} Photographs, most taken 1997-9;

{17} Undated photo, also three photos dated approx. 1997-1998, three dated 1997, one dated 1998, one dated 12.9.1996, one dated 13.5.1997, one dated 29.3.1997, four dated 18.3.1997, three dated 18.3.1998.

{18} Ashton Mill forms part of the Ashton Estate which stretches from the River Nene near Oundle in the west to Ashton Wold in the east, and which has been occupied since Roman times. In the 18th century it was a well-known sporting estate, with avenues of chestnut trees planted in a cross as rides, and a number of fox coverts. In the early 19th century the estate was owned by William Walcot and was largely farmed by tenants, with Ashton Wold continuing as a sporting ground. However, there is no evidence that it had ever contained a manor house, and when in 1860 it was purchased by Lionel Rothschild the sale particulars describe it as 'a very valuable and important landed estate', with sporting advantages, but no house adapted for the occupation of a gentleman. Both Lionel Rothschild and his son Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild (1840-1915), showed little interest in the estate, and the only structural work undertaken in the 19th century was the building of a hunting lodge at Ashton Wold. However, when Lord Rothschild's second son, Nathaniel Charles (1877-1923) - known as Charles - discovered Ashton by accident, he was so impressed by the rich fauna and flora of Ashton Wold that he persuaded his father to build him a house on the site of the hunting lodge, and in 1900 Lord Rothschild subsequently commissioned the architect William Huckvale for this purpose.

Huckvale was required to design not only a house, but also an entire complement of estate buildings, and here, the Rothschilds became the first landowners in the country to provide their tenants with the luxury of both running filtered water and electricity. Lord Rothschild had employed the marine engineer Walter Morris Thomas to design an electricity generating station for his estate in Tring. This was a steam-powered installation housed within a former Silk Mill. At Ashton, Thomas was engaged c1900 to design and install a state-of-the-art electricity generating station together with a water supply pumping station both driven by vertical water turbines. Again, an existing mill building, in this instance a former corn mill on the River Nene, shown on Thomas Eyre's map of the area of 1779, was adapted and strengthened to house the generating and pumping equipment, together with water filtration and storage tanks. The turbines powered line shafting with belt drives to a pair of dynamos. Two diesel engines were installed alongside the turbine-driven machinery so as to allow the generating and pumping equipment to operate in periods of water shortage or when maintenance works to the turbines became necessary. The water supply pumps were also line shaft driven, and were located in a separate area next to the generating hall. Beyond this part of the mill were water storage and filtration tanks from where two different water supplies, one drawn from the pond to the rear of the mill, the other from a borehole. These supplies were pumped to intermediate storage tanks and thence to the estate farm and stable buildings which were supplied with river water, and to the estate cottages and the mansion, which used the filtered water. The generating and pumping stations remained in use until the 1930s when it became more economical for the estate to be connected to mains electricity and water supplies. The generating and water supply machinery remains complete and in situ.

The present list description reads: 'Watermill, now museum. Probably 17th century origins, mainly 18th and 19th century, converted for generation of electricity early 20th century. Squared coursed limestone and orange brick with Colleyweston slate roof. Originally rectangular plan. 3 storeys. 5-window range, at ground and first floor, of sash windows, with glazing bars, under flat brick arches. 6-window range, at second floor, of square casements with glazing bars. Early 20th century doors and doorways to centre and left under shallow brick arches. Central 20th century door, to second floor, is below gabled and weatherboarded loading gantry. Blocked windows to first floor left and right of centre. Evidence of single-storey stone building to right hand corner of main range. Ground and first floor brickwork is probably 18th century; the second floor was probably raised 19th century. 19th century brick lean-to extension to left and early 19th century stone lean-to to right. Mill race passes through centre of building with sluice to the right. Rear elevation is similar to front elevation with casement windows with glazing bars under flat brick arches. Lean-to to left is open fronted with sluice mechanism rising from a wooden platform. 19/early 20th century single storey-stone range projects at right angles to right. Interior has machinery for generating electricity installed by Rothschild family early 20th century when the mill ceased to be used for grinding corn.'

The main mill building is brick-built but incorporates small areas of masonry presumed to be the remains of an earlier mill structure on the site. It was originally three-storied with loft storage above, but the ground and first floors were combined to accommodate the generating and water supply machinery. The building has a Collyweston stone slate roof covering supported on a double purlin roof structure carried on queen strut roof trusses. The mill is seven bays long, with later extensions to each end and a single storey rear wing forming an L-shaped complex. The rear elevation has a tall lean to addition at the right hand end of the building which extends to the cill level of the attic floor. There is a projecting hoist canopy and platform to the centre bay at upper-floor level. Internally the mill building is of conventional form for its type and period, with open-plan floors lit by single windows in the front and rear walls of each bay. Heavy bridging beams support substantial and closely spaced joists, and the boarded floors incorporate areas of later repair where apertures related to corn milling equipment, hoists, chutes and belt drives have been infilled. Many of the bridging beams have been supplemented by vertical posts located at mid-span. The interior of the mill was stripped of its milling machinery when the building's lower floors were adapted to form the electricity generating and water storage and pumping areas.

Ashton Mill is recommended for designation at Grade II*.

<1> English Heritage, 1998, Monuments Protection Programme: Electric Power (Renewables), (unchecked) (Document). SNN46881.

<2> Starmer G.H., 1965, CBA Record Cards: Industrial Archaeology in Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Recording Form (Not SMR)). SNN1611.

<3> Starmer G.H., 1982, National Register of Industrial Monuments, (part checked) (Catalogue). SNN563.

<4> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 18/9 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<5> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), G10 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN41470.

<6> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2001, A Guide To The Industrial Heritage Of Northamptonshire, p.8 (checked) (Gazetteer). SNN104759.

<7> Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2010, Amendment to The List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, (checked) (Schedule). SNN106694.

<8> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2011, A Guide To The Industrial Heritage of Northamptonshire (2nd Edition), p.10 (checked) (Gazetteer). SNN107622.

<9> STARMER G., 2002?, Northamptonshire Watermills Survey 2001 - 2002 (A-H), p.4 (checked) (Report). SNN105520.

<10> Northamptonshire Industrial Archaeology Group, 2001, NIAG Industrial Gazetteer, Site 3 (checked) (Draft). SNN101121.

<11> Historic England, 2016, Heritage at Risk: East Midlands Register 2016, p. 51 (Report). SNN110747.

<12> Mackenzie Dodds, R., 1999, From Domesday to Dragonflies, Ashton Mill- A short history (Booklet). SNN111004.

<13> Starmer G., Ashton Mill: Brief Historical Notes, (checked) (Notes). SNN40035.

<14> Palmer M; Neaverson P., 1992, Industrial Landscapes of the East Midlands, p.86 (checked) (Book). SNN3691.

<15> Historic England, 2017, Heritage at Risk: East Midlands Register 2017, p. 59 (Report). SNN111090.

<15> Historic England, 2018, Heritage at Risk: East Midlands Register 2018, p. 59 (Report). SNN111434.

<16> Various, Various, Photographs of buildings in Ashton (East Northants) (Photographs). SNN111136.

<17> Photographs of buildings in Ashton Wold (Photographs). SNN111862.

<18> ENGISH HERITAGE, English Heritage Listing File, Heritage Protection Adviser, 6th November 2009 (Report). SNN111579.

Record last edited

Dec 16 2024 12:55PM