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The Water Mills of St Keverne
by
Anthony Unwin
From The Journal of the Royal Institution of
Cornwall (1977).
In 1930, Charles Henderson wrote of St. Keverne
,"There have been at one time and another
twelve corn mills in the parish, viz.
Pengarrick, Tregarne and Mill Mehal on the
Porthallow stream; Trenoweth and Tregoning on
the Porthoustock stream: Godrevy, Polcoverack,
Downas, Tregidden, Polkernogo, Trelease and
Trelanvean, the last four being on the Durra
stream. Only the Pengarrick mill is still
working".
This account, albeit a little inaccurate, could
well reflect the demise of water-power in
Cornwall as a whole, and the awakening need to
record such relics of local history and
craftsmanship before they were completely lost.
For, until changing circumstances encouraged
their gradual disappearance, the splashing of
mill-wheels, the rumble of mill-stones, and the
creaking of the millers cart were a common
enough part of village life in most localities.
But today, only a fraction of these mills
remain intact, and some have vanished without
trace. Accordingly, the author has attempted to
complete, as far as possible, the picture in
St. Keverne parish outlined by Charles
Henderson almost half a century ago, and has
compiled a short gazetteer to complement his
survey. It is dedicated to the late Mr. R.
Richards of Chenale Farm, Rosenithon, St.
Keverne. who both inspired and guided his
researches.
The parish of St. Keverne is the largest, and
one of the most important historically, in
Western Cornwall, lying within the district
known as "Meneage", from the Cornish
Meneghek meaning "monastic".
It extends over some 10,300 acres, and by
virtue of its great size, was from an early
date divided into four distinct areas or
"Turns" viz. Turn Bean
("little"), to the north-east; Turn
Traboe, the north-west; Turn Trelan, to the
south west: and Turn Tregarn, the east. All
four met at the Church Town, or
"Lankeverne", which formed a separate
district in its own right. Thus, from the St.
Keverne Rate Book for the years 1721-1747,
which lists those tenements extant throughout
the parish, the following can be
extracted:-
Turn Traboe-Trelease Mill.
Tregiden Mill.
Mehale Mill.
Turn Trelan- Coverock Mill.
Turn Tregarn-Tregarn Mill.
Trenoweth Mill.
the Church Town included Tregonon Mill.
These were the oldest and principal centres of
grist-milling in the parish, whose origins can
be traced back to the Middle Ages, and which
continued in operation until comparatively
recent times.
They were first conceived to serve the lords
and tenants of the various manorial estates
established locally sometime after the Norman
Conquest, although there must have been more
primitive methods in use before this time. The
effects of feudalism were only gradually felt
in such a remote part of the realm: but by the
13th century the new laws and customs, which
obliged tenants to have their corn ground at
the lord's mill in the best interests of
all concerned, had encouraged the spread of a
number of small tenements on each of the main
streams serving this part of Meneage. Principal
among these streams is the Durra which rises
amongst the gorse and heather of Goonhilly
Downs, and finally feeds Gillan Creek at Penpol
("Creek-head"). On its way it
formerly supplied water over the centuries to
no less than eleven mills, of which six were in
St. Keverne parish.
As early as 1260 therefore, we find Reginald
le Potier releasing to Sir Richard de Reskymmer
the mill in his "demesne" of Treles,
and another mill further down the (Durra)
stream in his "fee" of Polcronogou.
With these he granted the "mulcture"
(custom) of his tenants in Treles, Lanharth,
Trebyan, and Polcronogou, as well as power of
"distraint" (seizure of horse and
impounding of grain or flour carried thereby)
in default of mulcture on his land of Menedlaed
and in the fee of Treles. He also undertook not
to erect any other mill in the fee of Treles on
the said water to the injury of Richard de
Reskymmer (to avoid wasteful competition and
price-cutting!). Trelease mill remained one of
the mills on the manor of Reskymer Meneage
until the eighteenth century, when it passed to
Lanarth, but the mill below Polkanoggo
disappeared. In 1808 the former was described
as "all those 3 well-accustomed Grist
Mills called Trelease Mills - now in the
possession of Richard Pentecost", but by
1845 it had become " . . . a Double Grist
Mill only. It was, however, still "well
supplied with water", and then part of
Trelease Vean, together with "suitable
outhouses, two cottages, an Orchard, Garden,
and several meadows of rich land . . . ".
It apparently continued work at least until the
1890s, and as a dwelling it survives today,
although the long mill race, which began below
Trenithen Waste, has been partially filled in
and destroyed.
As previously mentioned, the Meneage area was
from earliest times closely associated with
monastic activity, and one of its most
important manors in the Middle Ages, that of
Traboe, was no exception. This large estate,
which also extended into the adjoining parish
of St. Martin, was granted to the monks of St.
Michael's Mount by Robert, Earl of Mortain,
about 1087, and belonged to them until the
fifteenth century. It was their main endowment,
and the manor mill, which took its name from
the parent priory, lay in the valley below
Lesneague, at Mill Mehal (formerly "Melyn
Myhall" meaning "St. Michael's
Mill"). In 1258 an agreement was reached
between the prior and John of Trembrase, in
which John granted to the prior and monks the
water which flowed between his land and that of
the priory, for an annual rent of sixpence.
Permission was also given for a leat and sluice
to be built for the priory mill on the same
land, for which the prior gave John two
shillings. Nine years later. Thomas of
Polgwidnan granted to the prior, Ralph de
Cartaret, his right in the moor, land, and
waters near the leprosary of Nansclegy, in
return for a recognition of Thomas' right
to his vineyard opposite St. Michael's
Mill, and part of the road from there towards
St. Keverne. Thomas gave the prior and monks
liberty to divert the water flowing in the
moor, and right of way to their mill for horses
and packs.
The fortunes of the priory mill followed those
of the manor: about 1420 it passed to Sion
Abbey, and in 1538 to the Crown. Not long
before, in 1481 a Reeve's Roll reports that
the mill yielded 26s. 10d. from one Rado
Boteler.
After the dissolution, the manor came into the
hands of the Earl of Salisbury, from whom the
estate was acquired by the Gregor family of
Trewarthenick.
By the 18th century. the yearly value of the
mill had increased somewhat to £30 when
Mr. Anthony Hosken was tenant. It was not until
1909 that the Trewarthenick estates came up for
sale, at which time Lot No. 10 a "Messuage
or Dwelling House, Mill and tenement called
Mellin Mehall Mill Tenement", was stated
to be let to Barnett Tripconey deceased!.
Mehall Mill
The present building, now a private house, lies on the
side of the Porthallow stream opposite to
Trembrase, within the estate of Lanarth.
Rectangular in plan and of two storeys, it has
the more favoured hipped slate roof, which does
not catch the wind like a gable-end, and
withstands well the vibrations caused by the
motions of the gearing. In this case the
machinery was nicely set low down, near
ground-floor level, in a shallow cog-pit.
Grinding continued there intermittently until
the adjacent dwelling caught fire some
twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, the
water-wheel, axle, and most of the ironwork
which combined with wooden gears to drive two
pairs of granite stones, are now missing. The
hillside slopes steeply all around the mill,
and the land, which is built up to first floor
level at one end to facilitate loading and
unloading, is almost always waterlogged. Most
of the leat, which passed through a meadow to
the rear of the mill, from a small pond, has
now disappeared.
Another site with early monastic associations
lies in the valley below St. Keverne parish
church. The barton of "Tregonan" was
the chief tenement on the monastic manor of
Lankeverne (Church Town), with a small cell of
Cistercian monks from the Abbey of Beaulieu in
Hampshire. In a list of their possessions made
at the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538,
"Tregonan (firma. molend) is given a
rental value of £1-2-6. Tregoning was
then probably a large farm with a mill, and
perhaps a chapel and burying ground attached.
By 1840, the ruins of the monastic dwellings
had almost disappeared but the mill tenement
which remained consisted of Dwelling House,
field, two water-mills, and garden, while water
was supplied via a leat and three ponds from
the Porthoustock stream below the Priory. The
small upper mill building still stands,
constructed of stone and cob with a slated roof
hipped at one end, and gabled at the other
where the 14 foot diameter wooden overshot
wheel was formerly positioned. The last farmer
to grind corn there about 1916 was named
Pearce, but this mill is now a shell, and used
for other purposes.
A similar fate has befallen Tregarne Mill,
situated in the valley between Tregarne and
Tredinnick and behind the Mill House which
was rebuilt about 90 years ago after being
burnt down. This must surely be the oldest mill
building left in the parish, of cob upon solid
rock, with a rounded exterior wall nearest the
house. It is of one storey only, while the
stable doors are very small and low, and the
modern roof replaced thatch. Tregarne was
freely held under the great Manor of Rosuic
Lucy's and in 1404 it was itself esteemed
a Manor. A Reeve's Roll of that year
mentions the Manor Mill as being rebuilt. By
1659 there were four holdings in Tregarne, and
Tregarne Mill tenanted by Fabian, wife of
William Cullen, with their two children Leonard
and Margaret under the Manor of Tregarne
Condorow. They were followed by James Sandys.
and then William Jennines who in 1767 was
paying an annual rent of £20 for the
Mills and Ground. By 1808 when his son, also
William took over the lease, this sum had
increased to £50-l0s.. in consideration
of an additional water-mill, but its life was
short-lived and in 1871 the rent reverted to
£43. The one pair of granite stones was
last used by William Harris, miller and farmer
there from 1871 onwards.
The original machinery in such manorial mills
was entirely wooden, with one or two small
water-wheels normally over-driven by wooden
launder from an artificial leat or race and
mill-pond. Most of the leats for the St.
Keverne mills are traceable today, even when
the mill-buildings have entirely disappeared,
as at Porthallow and Trenoweth Mill. Sometimes
the mill-pond has been filled in: behind
Tregidden grist mill, on the very edge of the
parish, a bungalow now occupies the site of a
large pond. which was formerly surrounded by a
grove of stately elms. Occasionally, there was
no pond at all, as at Trelease Mill; while
below Trevenwith Farm, near Kennack Sands, a
circular pond was reinstated for trout-fishing
purposes long after the mill had finished work.
Polcoverack Mill stands at such a height above
the Coverack valley that it was necessary to
channel water from several sources to
collection points, before feeding it along a
beautifully finished race of cut stone to the
wheel. Like most of the water-wheels in St.
Keverne parish, this was overshot and of
"hybrid" construction (wooden spokes
and buckets, cast-iron frames). Others varied
in size from a small twelve-foot wheel at
Porthallow to a fine twenty-foot example at
Tregidden both by the St. Just-inPenwith
Ironfounders Nicholas Holman and Sons Ltd.,
while the large wheel at Trevenwith was of less
than eighteen inches "breast",
unusually narrow. Several instances of
"tandem" mills or wheels are
recorded, indicating that sufficient power
could not be generated by the smaller
all-wooden wheel up to about fourteen feet in
diameter, which could not be constructed on a
larger scale with any degree of efficiency.
Internally, the drive would originally be
direct to each pair of millstones through
intermediate gearing, until the introduction of
cast-ironwork in the 18th century encouraged
the building of much larger water-wheels, with
added strength and stability, which could drive
two pairs of mill-stones at once if necessary.
This was achieved locally by installing either
horizontal lay" shafts from the internal
"pit-wheel" to the upright
"stone-spindle". in the earlier and
smaller two-storey buildings. or a single
vertical shaft which passed up through a
three-storey mill and also drove a
"sack-hoist". The grist-mill at
Treeidden, near Newrown-in-St. Martin, alone
retains a complete set of horizontal gearing
for its two pairs of stones, together with a
magnificent wooden "axle-tree" and
bearing for its water-wheel. As usual, the
all-wooden pit-wheel has end-on staves to drive
shafts that are parallel with the axle instead
of at right angles, while the machinery
combines wooden gears with cast-iron to ensure
more efficient running and less vibration. (A
similar arrangement occurred at Mehal Mill
except that one set of shaft-gearing, at right
angles to the pit-wheel, was almost entirely
wooden). "Tregudyn and the mill" are
first mentioned about l250, when Odo fitz Hewin
granted them to his son Michael. They were held
under the great Manor of Rosuic Lucy's by
the Reskvmers, who retained one of the mills of
their sub-manor of Meneage here for several
centuries, and by 1506 were worth some 25s. per
annum. The present rectangular two-storey
building continued in use until well after the
Second World War. It is unusually designed with
corner-stones, window, and door surrounds of
granite, and contrasting arches of
red-brick.
Another site where working days finished
relatively recently lies behind the sheltered
cove at Porthallow. In 1560 John Tretherif and
his wife granted leave to John Reskvmer to make
a "hedwere" on their land of
Tregamynyon in "Keveran", and a
water-course to his mill called Pengarrek Mill
in the said parish, for an annual rent of
sixpence. Presumably the leat mentioned is that
which begins below Pengarrock Farm. and runs
parallel to the stream in a straight line, with
no pond, before turning sharp right to the rear
of the Mill House. The old mill was replaced in
the 19th century by a more modern 3-storey
building of blue elvan, whose foundations are
said to have rested on faggots because of the
marshy terrain. It latterly ran two pairs of
composition mill-stones, underdriven by
overshot wheel, with a further pair driven by
oil-engine. They were complemented by a
substantial roller-mill, while the sack-hoist,
housed in a domed extension in the roof, was
also driven from the upright shaft and
cast-iron machinery. It was one of the
sweetest-running mills in the county, and the
last miller, Mr. R. A. E. Sobey, still lives in
part of the Mill House. By 1958 the wheel had
gone, but much of the machinery remained,
unfortunately the whole building has now
disappeared, with modern dwellings substituted
nearby.
Like most sites with manorial origins.
Porthallow Mill served customers from far and
wide in later times, as feudal customs died
out, and the miller became an independent
tradesman. Mills were then let on a system of
lives, as the following advertisement
demonstrates:-
July 28th. 1810. Mills for sale. On Friday
the tenth day of August next, at 3 o'clock
in the afternoon, a survey will be held at the
house of John Stevens, Innkeeper, in the parish
of St. Keverne, for selling, for the remainder
of a term of 99 years, determinable on the
deaths of 3 lives, aged 57, 14 and 12. All
those well-watered Grist Mills, sit in the
village of Porthoustock in the parish of St.
Keverne, now in the occupation of Joseph
Tripconey as tenant-at-will.
The above mills, being in good repair, and
situated in a very populous and fertile
parish.
Some mills however, like that at Polcoverack.
were built independently of manorial
jurisdiction, grinding farm provender to meet
local demand, whereas others formed only part
of their owners business. The village of
Coverack at one time boasted three mills in a
line, all worked from the same mill-race. This
was fed by water from three ponds, two of which
lay further up the valley behind the village,
and one between the upper and middle mills. The
last to grind grain was that of Richard
Roberts, who was in addition a corn, flour, and
coal merchant, and also a farmer, using the
lower mill-building for storage purposes. The
sad remains of his premises still stand,
although hardly recognisable as such, where a
small ten-foot overshot wheel can be seen,
constructed by F. Bartle & Sons.
Ironfounders of Cam Brea. This is not the
original, which was a fine eighteen-foot hybrid
example driving two pairs of granite stones,
but was removed in 1931 from Poltesco Farm,
near Ruan Minor, and installed here to drive a
dynamo.
Some sites seem particularly strangely located
today. The scant remnants of Godrevv Mill which
stood near the sea-shore below Rosenithon, the
manor which it served, can only be reached by a
winding footpath following the course of the
leat ("bedo molendini" worth 12d.
rent in 1318) while those of Trelan Vean Mill
which lie on the side of the valley opposite to
Roscrowgey are now almost inaccessible. Both
are 13th century in origin. Perhaps the
smallest mill in the whole parish is also very
difficult to find, lying in the secluded Downas
valley midway between Coverack and Kennack
Sands. At the foot of a long, steep, and
overgrown cart-track which descends to the
stream below from Pednavounder, and passes the
remains of the dwelling-house above, are the
ruins of a small rectangular stone building no
more than twelve feet by ten feet, close by the
east bank of the stream. Like Trevenwith Mill
nearby, also very difficult of access, it ran
but one pair of granite stones, powered by a
large hybrid wheel on cast-iron axle. A small
fireplace in one corner is an interesting
feature of this remote tenement. originally
known as "Wheal Downas Mill" from an
old copper mine nearby which was active in the
earls part of the 19th century.
Two other sites, which have so far eluded
discovery, are those of the "tucking"
mills which apparently stood near Mehal and
Tregidden, where homespun cloth was cleaned,
dipped and dressed with machinery driven by
water-wheels. The latter is recorded as early
as 1506, when Thomas Tregudvn returned in rent.
"pro molendino fultonis". 7s. or
thereabouts, and by 1621 it had become
"Treguden Tuckingemille". In 1840. a
field which lies a little further up the valley
behind the corn mill, below Trewoon, was still
called "Park Trutcher" or
"Fuller's Close". Although parcel
of the manor of Reskymer Meneage. it was a more
independent operation, on a small scale, and
was not manorial in the same sense as the corn
mills.
In conclusion, one can say that about a
century ago at least nine grist mills could
have been working regularly in St. Keverne
parish, producing both flour and provender for
the needs of those in the immediate
locality.
By 1914. several remained in use. but the
First War was a kind of Indian Summer of the
Country Flour Mill, and shortly after, the
flour trade declined considerably. Soon,
farmers were able to obtain their own small
power-mills and, as a result. only three
survivors continued grinding corn until
relatively recent years. Porthallow mill, which
was latterly run by the Collins family who also
managed Gweek and Carne Mills, was the first to
close in 1946. About three years later, the old
farm-house of Mr. W. H. Eustice at Mehal Mill
caught fire and burned down, forcing him to
vacate the property, then in good order. This
left Tregidden Grist Mill alone to work on
until the unfortunate death of Mr. Harry
Tripconey, the last miller, in 1954. However.
the intervening years of decay, and the demand
for scrap metal, have taken a heavy toll of
even these mills, so that, of the twenty-one
sites so far recorded, only the last-mentioned
retains its fine overshot wheel, albeit in a
sad state, together with machinery and
mill-stones intact. Mehal Mill has suffered
badly from neglect and destruction so that it
is now quite derelict - it probably possessed
the nicest layout of all its fellows. A few
other buildings remain as shells, or converted
to alternative uses, the rest are in ruins or
have entirely disappeared. And so have passed
the water-mills of St. Keverne. where today the
streams pursue their course towards the sea
uninterrupted by ponds, races and leats. Now,
only a romantic remembrance of splashing wheel
and tranquil riverside scene remains.
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