Published by Leat Press in 2004, 84 pages. Large A4 size softback (N7780)
From the introduction: Since the eleventh century mills have been documented in the Tiverton area. In the medieval period, water power was primarily used for milling wheat, barley and other grains. Mills for fulling cloth, known in the west country as 'tucking' mills, were also introduced at an early date and Tiverton's economy revolved around the woollen trade and the success of its many associated mills for several centuries. Water power was developed for many other applications - for example - de-watering mines, crushing ores, manufacture of scythes and reaphooks, otherwise known as edge tools, malt mills, paper making, saw milling, bone crushing for fertilisers, logwood mills for dyestuffs - but few of these mills saw action in Tiverton parish. A logwood or rasp mill existed for a long time at Bolham and a few of Tiverton's flour mills also ground malt. (In the eighteenth century these had to compete with a horse-mill established by the mayor and corporation in St. Andrew's Street).
The longest-lasting mill sites were those built in the best locations and leats may have survived for centuries, as these were often major construction works for their period. Weirs would have required periodic renewal, especially on the Exe, following floods. A leat is a man-made channel taking water from a weir on a river or stream, or from a millpond with spring, to a mill to power the waterwheel or to a town as a water supply, or to irrigate water meadows. Water supply and irrigation leats were at least as important as millleats in earlier centuries...
This book provides a fascinating account of the watermills in and around Tiverton, and includes around 35 entries, each one detailing a mill and providing a short chronological history of it. The entries include:
Cove Mills
Coombeland
Rock Mill
Bolham Water Turbine House
Bolham Mills
Bolham Higher Mills
Bolham Lower Mills
Lurleymill
Palmers Mill
Farleigh Mill
Boysham / Braysham
Northern And Western Mills
Cuckoo Mills
Town, Bury's / Late Rossiter's Mills
Mills Behind Palehouse
Pale Bargain
Blinman's, Later Cooking / Ducking Stool Mills
The Factory
Skinner's / Roller Mills And Steam Laundry
Greenway
Collipriest
Holmead
Withleigh Mills
Allers Mill
Chettiscombe Manor Mills
Chevithorne Barton
Hay Mills, Fordlands
Old Mill, East Mere
Crazelowman
Gornhay Mills
Ham Mills
Elmore Mills
Gold Street / Riverside Mills
Hammetts Lane Mills
Hobbyhorse / St Andrew's Mill
The condition of the book is generally very good. The covers have one or two minor scuffs, but the spine is tight and intact, and all pages are clean, intact, unblemished and tightly bound.