Lode Mill

Hi Folks, congratulations on a super website, just discovered it through ‘Park Life’. I will use this forum to let you know what is happening to Lode Mill, currently restoration of the interior is on hold until we resolve our bats issues, the valley is a home to Daubentons, Pipistrelles and Brown Long Eared, seemingly quite a thriving community, and one or two resident in the mill. According to the Midland Wind and Watermills Society Lode Mill is one of very few left in the country with a working interior, and to their knowledge the only one with a drying kiln in the middle section. This appears to have been added later as the centre door has been lowered sometime, you can see this from the riverbank path opposite as the lintel has been lowered.
We would be interested to have any information from residents about its history. I propose to invite people to an open day once the interior is made safe, which will be a while yet.
Jim Campbell

5 thoughts on “Lode Mill

  1. brian_r

    Hi Jim – thanks for contributing to our Forum and for updating us with the goings-on at Lode Mill. I am also a newcomer (5 years) so I have only ever known this building to be derelict and assumed this was the way it would stay. I am pleased therefore that you have taken on the enormous task of renovating it. I am sure many of us in Alstonefield would be delighted to be invited to an open day. I shall watch this space with interest. ….Brian Ross

  2. john_r

    Hi Jim,
    Great to hear about Lode Mill, will you be writing about its history? It would be interesting to know its origins, what it did and the dates it operated.
    John Reavy

  3. Howard FORTON

    Lived at lode mill house. 1963 to 1984. If you want to know what it’s like to live there drop me an email. And it’s haunted. Used to be an undertakers. Very strange vibes. Howard.

  4. Janice

    Hi everyone,
    I’m very happy to have stumbled upon this website almost by accident!
    My grandmother and her family – the Wood family – lived in Dove Cottage according to the 1901 census. My great grandfather John William was a foreman at a quarry and sandpit in Hartington. A few years later, they all emigrated to Canada. I live in Leicestershire.
    I usually visit the area 3 or 4 times a year. I look forward to Lode Mill being restored to its former glory.
    Can anyone tell me what kind of mill it was please?
    Thanks.
    Best wishes,
    Janice

  5. Dr J P Watts

    I have been collecting miscellaneous documents from the Sheen/Longnor area and one such item I obtained was an 1890 ‘Distress Warrant’ for Ralph ADAMS living in Load Mill (Miller) of Alstonefield.

    The major crime he was found guilty of was that of a Pony Straying into the highway, for which he was fined a total of 14 shillings and 6 pence.

    His name appears in the 1891 Census (as well as earlier ones).

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