Elm View Mill remains
In the early 1880s, Elm View mill ceased operation as a flour mill, and was converted to drive a set of ram-pumps to pump water up to the high ground to the east of Spring Shaw wood where there had been constructed a large subterranean reservoir. From here water was fed to the town, the pressure being derived from the high aspect of the reservoir.
The 1891 and 1901 census’ records seventy-eight year-old William Sage at number two Mill Cottages as ‘mill attendant, water works’.
The photograph shows the remains of the pump gear attached to the mill wheel after the second World War when a doodle bug had crashed nearby and blown the roof off the mill building. The mill was left abandoned and pulled-down in the 1960s when this photograph was taken.
The attached O.S. map from 1897 shows the reservoir and the mill building which is just described as ‘Pump House’. Half-way between the Pump House and the Smithy (Smy) are the two little mill cottages.
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