Monument record 727/35/1 - North Mill

{1}In 1086 there was a milI at Towcester which rendered 13s 4d a year. This may have been the North Mill which was in existence prior ro 1173 when Roger de Clare franted it to the Knoghts Templar as parcel of their preceptory at Dingley. It later passed with all the property of that order to the Hospital of St John.

By the early 16th century the North Mill was at least partly in private hands, for in 1512 Robert Wale of Northampton granted half his mill in Towcester called the North mill to a local townsman. At the view of frankpledge held in March 1542 two millers were in trouble for taking excessive toll. The miller who held the king’s mill called ‘le Churche mylnes’ was fined one shilling; the miller who held the mill called ‘le North mylne’ was fined sixpence. The North Mill had passed to the Crown after the Dissolution, and in 1574 it was granted to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. A rental of the manor of Towcester drawn up in 1609 recorded only the North Mill, for which £5 a year was received. Presumably the Church Mill was held by Sir George Fermor, then lord of the manor.

An indication of the location of the North Mill is provided by a deed of 1285-6, in which two boundaries of an acre in Towcester’s field were given as ‘the court of the hospital’ and ‘the little ditch of Mulnewey’. The hospital stood ‘at the end of Towcester’, next to the North Bridge.

<1> Taylor J.; Foard G.; Laughton J.; Steadman S.; Ballinger J., 2002, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Towcester, 3.1.2.2 (unchecked) (Report). SNN103132.

Record last edited

Jun 26 2009 10:55AM