Building record 6275/1/1 - The Mill House, Farndon/Woodford Mill

House, formerly corn mill and mill house. Dated 1685 with C18 and C19 additions. Coursed squared ironstone, tile roof, brick end and ridge stacks.

{1} House, formerly corn mill and mill house. Dated 1685 with C18 and C19 additions. Coursed squared ironstone, tile roof, brick end and ridge stacks. 2 storeys and attic; 2-window range with 3-window C19 range to left. Central door to older range has a light leaded overlight and flat hood flanked by 20-pane horned sashes to ground and first floors, windows and door all with flat arches. Stone eaves, coped stone gables with kneelers. C19 wing to left has 1 and 2-light casement windows with segmental brick lintels, a brick cornice and a coped stone gable to left. Datestones to rear: that to older range inscribed EG/1685, the other EH/1868. Interior: hall has open fireplace with bar stop-chamfered bressumer and bar stop-chamfered spine beam. Mill machinery in C19 wing has been removed.

{3} Mill building now gutted of machinery and by 1966 had been converted into weekend house.

(4) History:
1749 A messuage, water-mill, bake-house and horse grist-mill, commonly called Farndon Mill, in the parish of Woodford, advertised to be let or sold.
1786 Thomas Jessop, of Farnton Mill, baker, miller and maltster insured his water corn mill and millhouse adjoining for £80.
1838 Richard Haynes owned and occupied Farndon house and mill, buildings and garden.
1846 The water corn mill situate at Woodford, late in the occupation of Richard Haynes, advertised for sale and described as driving three pairs of stones.
1860 Edward Haynes, miller at Farndon involved in a court case involving a great complication of disputed accounts.
1894 Mill using steam power as well as water power.
1899 Thomas Wright, of Farndon Mill, entered an action against the Great Central Railway for reducing the water supply to his mill by taking water for locomotives at Woodford locomotive depot. Believed settled out of course by GCR Company agreeing to pay the owner of the mill £40 per annum as long as it was used to grind corn.
c.1940 The railway company bought the mill and let it to a signalman, Jack Jelly.
Documentary sources: Eyre’s 1779 map shows the mill, un-named; 1810 survey plan for OS marks it Farndon Mill; Bryant’s 1827 map also marks it Farndon Mill; and 1840 Tithe Map marks it Woodford Mill.

The former mill is at the north west end of a range of two-storey plus attic stone buildings which also included the mill-house (at the south east end). The gabled roof had different roofing materials over each of the parts of the range but now is the same for the whole length. There is stone coping at each gable end but also at the join between the former mill-house and the rest of the building. Originally there were two stone based, brick topped rectangular chimney stacks, one at each end of the mill-house. Now there is a third at the north-west end of the former mill. The fenestration of the mill section has been significantly changed. Instead of a taking-in door and a ground floor with only two windows in the south-west side, there now are no doors, three windows of varying sizes on the second storey and four on the first storey. All have red brick segmental headings and are two light casement windows except one, which follows the line of an original wide window and has three lights.
The former mill-house section has retained the pattern of fenestration on the south west side but the four sash windows of equal size, appear to be larger than the originals. There used to be two dormer windows but these have been removed. The central door has a horizontal flat hood projecting from above it.

{6} Undated photo;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 9/153 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F05 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN44900.

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

<4> STARMER G., 2002?, Northamptonshire Watermills Survey 2001 - 2002 (H-Z), p.138 (checked) (Report). SNN105521.

<5> 1840, Woodford Tithe Map, (unchecked) (Map). SNN9871.

<6> Photographs of buildings in Woodford Cum Membris (Photographs). SNN114309.

Record last edited

Nov 9 2022 12:44PM