Wakes Colne Corn mill /gear in/house conversion <1>

The mill dates from c.1850 (the earliest date for the Colchester pattern tie plates) and exemplifies the ingenuity which flowered as part of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Christopher Farrow worked both a corn and oil mill at Wakes Colne in 1848. By 1853 he was succeeded by George Clark Baker and in 1878 by J. Green (who also managed Ford Street mill). In about 1891 Robert Brooks took over as manager of the mill for E.M. Johnson. William Ashby bought the mill from Brooks, followed by his sons Arthur and Harry Ashby, who ran the mill, producing flour by waterpower up until about 1945. After the war they reverted to electric grinders due to the decreasing flour trade but latterly concentrated on the coal merchant side of the family business.
Following a visit by Benham during the early 1970s Wakes Colne Mill is described as a three storey brick and slated corn mill flanked on one side by a disused oil mill and the other by the mill house. The oil mill retains the pit wheel wallower and instead of a spur wheel and stone nuts the vertical shaft drove a single overhead shaft. As the oil trade had almost certainly finished by 1894-1900, the edge runner stones and kettle were removed and latterly (c.1960) so was the iron waterwheel. The corn mill latterly grinding by electricity, retains an iron waterwheel (20 x 10 ft) with toothed rim engaging a 3ft pinion wheel. This set up was not uncommon generally in the mid C19 but was unusual in rural Essex. Its repair using a pattern held by Hunts (Atlas Works) of Earls Colne suggests they may have originally engineered the wheel. The pinion drove horizontal shafting carrying 5 pit wheels, each engaging overhead pinions and working one pair of stones, in a layout known as a ‘counterdrive’. Two pairs of the five stones with pit wheels, have been removed but three examples with iron gears, wood cogging remain. There is a centrifugal governor beside each pit wheel but only two tenter the three remaining stones, the third working a speed indicator. The stones were fed by a system known as Fairburns ‘silent feed’ which was common in larger mills but no so in smaller country mills. This also incorporated a conveyor along the line of stones which took the meal to an elevator and up to a bolter (Benham, 1976).

Wakes Colne Mill lies to the south of the Colchester Road and west of Chappel Bridge. It sits astride the river Colne which appears to have been straightened (upstream) and in parts embanked for a length of c.500m. The mill tail continues on the E-W line of the straightened watercourse, to rejoin the river Colne to the east. The mill pool or bypass, fed by a sluice immediately west of the mill, skirts around the mill to the south.
The present site comprises a number of historic structures dating from the earlier C19. The mill is now in residential use and is a 3½ storey brick built five bay building with a slate covered hipped Mansard roof. A perpendicular set gault brick two storey mill house with a slate covered roof, built flush with the façade, abuts the mill to the north. The front bays of the mill house in turn front an in-line ?earlier brick built 2½ storey range with a plain tile roof, which continues to the rear (west). The remains of the former red brick oil mill, since converted to residential use, abuts the mills southern end wall, while a two-storey brick built granary (also residential), in turn abuts the former oil mill to the south. A detached brick built stable block, now used as a store, lies to the north and west of the mill.
Unusually the brickwork of the mill changes in bond from Flemish bond across the lower storeys to English bond above the heads of the first floor windows to the eaves. This change could be symptomatic of a rebuilding/strengthening of the upper floors of the mill. All the apertures have segmental rough brick heads and the windows, where original, have stone sills. An off-centre (south) weatherboarded, slated and gable ended lucam projects to the front (east) from above purlin level. It is supported on a pair of curved timber braces springing from wall plate level and is positioned over a tier of taking-in doors that remain at first and second floors. The main entrance into the mill is also off-centre and biased to the north. All the windows of the façade retain their original metal framed fixed glazed frames, although the glazing has been replaced using modern (toughened) glass. Original metal framed windows are present at ground floor only in the rear elevation, with those of the first and second floors comprising replica timber sashes. Two of the rear first floor window apertures were inserted when the mill was converted to residential. They can be recognised by the use of timber sills instead of stone. An off-centre taking-in door survives at first floor and above a line of tie bar bosses, suggesting the strengthening of the stone floor to cope with the bank of five in-line-stones. A blocked bearing box in the rear elevation at first floor suggests the provision of a steam drive to the stones. A steam engine and later portable engine was situated within the adjacent oil mill. A wide shallow arch spanning the southern bays of the rear elevation opens into the wheel pit. This still retains the original iron breast shot waterwheel built or inserted, according to graffiti on the wheel in 1850. The iron wheel turned clock-wise (back) and retains its metal buckets, sole boards and pen trough, but has latterly suffered from corrosion and due to subsidence in one of the bearings now interferes with the wall of the wheel pit.
Most of the milling apparatus, fixtures and fittings were removed when the mill was converted, although it still retains the bank of three stones mentioned in the list description (pers. comm.) and of course the water wheel. All the gearing has also been removed from the former oil mill and the building survives in a partly derelict and partially rebuilt state as a residence. Four or two pairs of edge runner stones from the oil mill have been incorporated into the surrounding gardens as landscape features and although the original external waterwheel to the oil mill was removed in c.1960, the brick wheel pit and brick arch for the axle shaft remains. This is situated to the rear (W) of the mill and adjacent (parallel with) the by-pass sluice. The original rack and pinion winding gear for the sluice is still in working order and operates a pair of gates draining from the mill leat to the lower mill pond situated to the south and east.
Part of the present site is still to this day in use as a coal merchants and is still owned and operated by the Ashby family.
Current use: Residential
Condition: Good Order
Few equivalent examples of a purpose-built highly innovative and industrialised watermill were built or survive in Essex and as such Wakes Colne Mill survives as one of the most important C19 watermills in the county. Although compromised by subsequent alterations, the corn mill still retains the majority of its original ‘counterdrive’ mechanism and an unusual waterwheel arrangement. The mill has group value with a number of contemporary mill and farm buildings and continues to make a positive contribution toward the historic character of the Conservation Area <2>