Barnoldswick Corn Mill (19 July 2004)

[Stanley]

Barnoldswick Corn Mill (19 July 2004)

When Ken posted the will of William Lyster of Thornton on the 28th June this year it started me thinking. One of the problems with Barnoldswick Corn Mill is the paucity of information about the early years. Here is the state my research had reached until this week.

‘The Corn Mill has always been a bit of a mystery for me because I haven’t been able to find out anything about its early history. There is no mention of a mill in Domesday so it would seem that the good people of Barlick had to take their corn elsewhere to grind it in 1085. The first vague mention I know is that it was possibly under dispute in a court case of 1591 between Tempest of Bracewell and Bannister who owned Coates Hall. This may have been when the mill was built because Tempest owned a corn mill at Bracewell and he would see another mill at Barnoldswick as competition. However, the population was rising rapidly at this time and there is little doubt that the Bracewell Mill couldn’t cope with the demand.

Bannister must have won this case because on 20th of December 1617 the Bagshawe Papers record that Richard Heber of Flasby and Martin Dickonson and Christopher Ellis of Barnoldswick relinquished their rights in the mill and returned them to Richard Bannister of Coates.

By 1640 the owners of the Coates Estate seem to have been Lawrence Halstead of Sonning in Berkshire and John Hartley of Coates. They sold the mill and all rights appertaining to George Halstead of Hague on 20th November 1640. The next time it crops up in my records is on 20th October 1763 when an entry in the Barnoldswick Manorial Court roll records that the owners of the mill were instructed to repair a road 1000 yards long and nine feet wide between Brogden and the mill. This would be the route along which the inhabitants of Brogden brought corn to the mill to be ground.

In the 1851 census, Robert Waite is recorded as the corn miller and he employed two men. This doesn’t necessarily mean he owned the mill but was certainly working it. William Bracewell of Newfield Edge was renting the mill by 1850 and enlarged the dam. This was four years before he built what is now Wellhouse Mill and I have an idea he was thinking about water for Wellhouse as well as the Corn Mill when he rented the mill and made these improvements. On the 24th of June 1859 Bracewell bought the mill from the Bagshawe family who were the owners probably through their purchase of the Coates Hall Estate from William Drake in 1757. The mill dam is now filled in and is the garage site that runs alongside the beck from Gisburn Road to the mill

In 1885 Billycock died and as part of the break up of his estate the Corn Mill was up for sale in 1887 by order of the Chancery Court. At this time it was quite a well equipped mill with five pairs of French Burr stones and roller grinding machinery all driven by steam so it had a boiler and chimney at this time. This also indicates that it was grinding both flour and animal feed.

At the time of his death, Billycock had been in the process of building a gas works to serve the town. This was on land adjacent to the Corn Mill. The eventual buyer of both the gas works and the Corn Mill in 1890 from the Bracewell family, the trustees and the Craven Bank was the newly formed Barnoldswick Gas and Light Company. This private company was founded on July 3rd 1888 with 1200 shares of £10 each. £6 was paid on each share. The miller at this time seems to have been Moreland Hoyle who originated in Whitley Bay and had been brought to Barnoldswick by Bracewell as miller. In 1885 work at the mill ceased when the Craven Bank took over the affairs of William Bracewell and sons. It re-started in 1888 when the new gas company started operations with Moreland Hoyle as the tenant and miller.

In August 1892 the gas works was sold to the Local Board for £13,850 and with the passing of the Barnoldswick Gas Act on 17 July 1893 it became a municipal undertaking. The Corn Mill was part of the sale and the Local Board became the owners. They rented the mill to Moreland Hoyle on a fixed rent and there are numerous letters in the old Urban District records at Preston dealing with matters like forcing Hoyle to do repairs and refusing them permission to have heaters in the pig sties at the mill!

The corn mill was bought in 1948 by James Moreland Hoyle of 62 Skipton Road, Barnoldswick, and his son and business partner, Maurice Crampton Hoyle and run as an animal foodstuffs business. The conveyance dated 7th January included ….. “plot of land situate near to Cornmill Terrace and containing 342 yards …. Together with premises known as the Barnoldswick Cornmill with the boiler house, engine house, chimney, two dwelling houses, piggeries, stable and other building erected on the first mentioned plot of land”. The partnership was dissolved in 1962.

The Hoyle family were to be the millers until the Corn Mill ceased production. They then continued to run the mill as livestock feed distributors. I used to buy animal feeds there in the 1960’s from ‘Cramp’ Hoyle.

Then Ken posted his transcript of William Lyster’s will so we can add one more snippet to the story so far.

From the will of William Lyster [Lister] of Thornton. September 1, 1582. He leaves his son, Bartholomew Lyster ‘all that capitall messuaige and tenemente called Brockden; and all that close called Darkhill; and all that corne mylne with the sooken called Barnoldeswecke mylne, except certayn common of pasture belonginge to the said capitall messuaige of Brockden, occupied by the tenantes and fermers of Myddoppe, the said premises were latlie demysed to me the said William Lyster by indenture of lease, maid by the moste famous princes, Phillipe and Marie, lait kinge and quene of England.’

Notice that title was granted by Philip and Mary whose regnal years were 1554/1558.  Therefore the mill and it’s rights existed physically before then as the will says they were demised to William Lyster.  This period in the first half of the 16th century must have been one of strong population growth because the Whitemoor map of 1580 shows enclosures from the waste around Barlick, a sure sign of pressure on agricultural resources.  It is no great leap to assign the need for extra corn-milling capacity to an increase in cultivated area.  Therefore we can start thinking about the period 1500 to 1550 with some confidence as the building date for the mill at Barnoldswick until we get better evidence.  My gut feeling is that it will be nearer the end of that span than the beginning but my mind is open. One last point is that some time between the date of the will, 1582 and 1591 when we hear of the dispute between Tempest and Bannister, the mill changed hands.

SCG/19 July 2004
Filed in Research04

[elise]

"...repair a road 1000 yards long and nine feet wide between Brogden and the mill."
This is Gisburn Road from its junction with Brogden Lane, on to Skipton Road and then to the mill.
The distance from the gable end of Mill Cottages to the boundary wall of the old gas works is nine feet.

The millers account book dated 1736 states: "An account of corn ground at New Mill belonging to
Wm Bagshaw esq."