25 Jul 2024
by Dr Mike Nevell

In May 2024, I found myself standing in front of one of the oldest industrial buildings in Cheshire listening to water splashing over a gently turning waterwheel. I was on site at a quaint timber and sandstone corn mill known as Streton Watermill in my role as Industrial Heritage Support Officer for England (IHSO), a post I took up in March 2020. Working for the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust on a project supported by Historic England since 2012, I’m the fourth officer in this national role.

The work of the IHSO covers four areas. Firstly, is to support and promote best practice in the industrial heritage sector through face-to-face support and digital media. Secondly, to run ten regional industrial heritage support networks. Thirdly, to support and aiding strategic leadership & partnerships in industrial archaeology and heritage. And finally, to gather data on the state, condition, and resilience of around 600 protected industrial heritage and archaeology sites in England that are preserved, interpreted and open to the public. Consequently, much of my work involves online research, online meetings, and site visits, so I mostly work from home, although I am lucky enough have an office at Ironbridge which over looks Abraham Dary I’s 1709 blast furnace, one of the most iconic industrial archaeology monuments in the UK.

It was research on the state, condition, and resilience of industrial heritage sites open to the public that led me to Stretton Watermill on a mild late spring day. This corn grinding mill lies roughly 15kms south of Chester off the A534 between Broxton and Farndon (SJ 454 530). The present structure comprises a two-storey timber and sandstone mill building spanning the 16th to 20th centuries. It is protected as a Grade II* listed structure, meaning that its amongst the top 3% of protected buildings in England, and is open to the public through West Cheshire Museums between April and September.

A water mill is first recorded on this site in 1351, whilst a variety of inscriptions across the mill structure, both inside and outside, record the names of some of the millers from the 17th to the 19th centuries. In 1959, Stretton’s last miller, Albert Victor Gregory, retired and the mill lay derelict for over a decade. Recorded in a survey of Cheshire watermills in 1966 as one of the few mills in the county to retain its milling machinery, it was bought by Cheshire County Council and restored by engineers and millwrights Cyril and John Boucher as a working museum, between 1975 and 1977.

The mill has two waterwheels. On the western gable is an external overshot waterwheel of 10 feet (3m) diameter and was the one I first stood in front of, listening to the water cascading over the wooden paddles. The second, cast-iron, waterwheel lies inside at the eastern end of the mill. This is 14 feet (4.2m) diameter breast shot wheel and dates from a rebuilding phase of 1852. These waterwheels drive two sets of stones.

I was shown around the building by a volunteer, one of four who help to open Stretton Watermill to the public. The knowledge and enthusiasm of such volunteers are the bedrock of many industrial sites open to the public, with around 15% of the 400 organisation I deal with being entirely voluntary run. The mill was rebuilt on several occasions, with the timber-framing being restored or replaced around 1647, and the roof raised in 1770, when the timber-framing was covered by weather-boarding, and the thatching replaced by slates. The names of the key people responsible for these 18th Century alterations were inscribed onto a cornerstone beside the overshot wheel. In 1819 the upper floor of the mill was extended over the eastern wheelpit, and the waterwheel here replaced in 1852. Our volunteer guide shows us around the mill machinery, the creaking sounds of the lower pit wheel and great spur providing a backdrop to the tale of milling over the centuries. On the upper stone floor we are shown the grinding process in action and an array of disused mill stones, the noise and the low ceiling being a reminder of the cramped and dark conditions millers worked in. Back outside there is an opportunity to walk around the back of the mill, which is terraced in to the mill dam, and to look at the wildlife on and around the mill pond, and the water gushing along the mill bypass leat.

There are around 165 corn grinding wind and water mills protected and open to the public in England. A significant proportion of these are owned and run by local authorities, like Cheshire West and Chester Council who now run Stretton. Other water mills and windmills receive grants from their local authority to help them run these sites, although the increasing financial pressures on local government since the financial crash of 2007-08 means that this is a dwindling number. Keeping track of these pressures and the changing dynamics of ownership and leasing across the industrial heritage sector is a vital daily part of the work I do as IHSO.

The IHSO project is funded by a grant from Historic England and additional monies from the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, with support of the Association for Industrial Archaeology. Regular updates are provided through the project’s Facebook pages (IHSOengland), X/Twitter (@IHSOEngland), Instagram, and LinkedIn posts, and through the projects’ two websites (https://industrialheritagesupport.com/ and https://industrialheritagenetworks.com/), where you can sign up to receive regular email alerts.

Dr Mike Nevell

Iornbridge Gorge Museum Trust

I am the Industrial Heritage Support Officer for England, at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. I have more than 35 years of experience as a field archaeologist, and taught undergraduates and post-graduates as a senior lecturer for 18 years at Manchester and Salford universities. A former Chair of the Association for Industrial Archaeology, and have written over 150 academic papers and books including the Archaeology of Ironbridge in 20 Digs (Amberley Publishing, 2023); the Oxford Handbook of Industrial Archaeology (OUP 2022); The Archaeology of Manchester in 20 Digs (Amberley Publishing, 2020), and The Birth of an Industrial City: Glasgow and the Archaeology of the M74 (Society of Antiquaries Scotland 2016). I am President of the Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society, and editor of the Association for Industrial Archaeology newsletter.

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