Eskdale & District Local History Society

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My interest in watermills first arose when I realised that although both Boot and Muncaster corn mills were operational at the time there were the remains of other mills in the area slowly decaying virtually unnoticed. I decided to photograph the ones I had discovered but then the idea expanded to finding other mills and not only photographing them but also finding out something of their history. In some cases this has led to me finding documentary evidence of the former existence of a mill but not as yet finding any remains, for example at Drigg.

I should probably make it clear that my definition of a water mill is a mechanical device of some sort which is powered by a water wheel. This definition covers not only corn mills but also, in our area, other small scale industrial applications including bobbin mills, carding mills and a blacksmithy, processes which do not include milling or grinding.

I have tried to steer clear of recording the detailed mechanical workings of mills, not because it is not an interesting subject, but because it distracts from my main aim. However some knowledge of how a mill works is beneficial when identifying remains. It was some time before I allowed myself to be convinced that the little iron door in the ruined Holmrook corn mill was in fact the fire door of a drying kiln. Equally, at Broad Oak mill, the fairly large and wide wheels in the roof suggested they had been used for belt driving machinery and were not necessarily part of a corn milling process. In fact I later learned the mill had been used for making bobbins until about 1860 and after that was converted to a saw mill. I have also heard it said that it was later converted yet again to produce electricity for the local quarry but I am still looking for evidence to confirm this suggestion. Can anyone help me? Or does anyone know if the bobbin mill was itself a conversion from a former corn mill?

I have come across far more mills in our area than I expected although not all of them would have been working at the same time and others, as with Broad Oak above, were used for different purposes at different stages of their lives. My current listing is as follows:

Calderbridge Mill,

New Mill,

Row Mill, Gosforth,

Walkmill, Gosforth,

High Mill, Gosforth,

Wellington Blacksmithy, Gosforth,

Parknook Mill, Gosforth,

Gosforth Hall Mill,

Bothelton (Bolton) Mill, Gosforth,

Nether Wasdale Mill,

Tosh Tarn Mill, Nether Wasdale,

Santon Bridge Mill,

Hollinbush Mill, Irton,

Holmrook Mill,

Drigg Mill,

Seascale Mill,

Boot Mill, Eskdale,

Gill Bank Mill, Eskdale

Miterdale Mill,

Muncaster Head Bloomsmithy,

Muncaster Walk Mill, (Burn Booth Mill),

Muncaster Mill,

Linbeck Mill, Birkby,

Stainton Mill, nr Waberthwaite, and

Broad Oak Mill, nr Waberthwaite.

Other possible mills include:

Dalegarth Mill , Eskdale,

Low Birker Mill, Eskdale,

Spot How Copper Mine Mill, Eskdale,

Eastward Field Mill, Eskdale,

a mill upstream of Linbeck Mill, and

a mill in the field to the east of Keyhow Coppice.

I know little about many of these mills and, in some cases, virtually nothing. If you can help me with any aspect of their history, or even add to my list of mills, I would be very pleased to hear from you. I am particularly interested in anything which throws light on the importance of mills in the community or which illustrate life in the past.

As an example of one of my more productive investigations I have put together, as a part history, all I have found out about Nether Wasdale Mill. This is shown below. Please note that the name Nether Wasdale, as we would now write it, was usually written as one word in old documents. Its use below reflects the document from which the information was taken.

Some history of Nether Wasdale Mill

The saw mill at Netherwasdale next to Forest Bridge, formerly Force Bridge, is on the site of earlier mills which until the 19th century were used for corn milling. The earliest reference I have is in the 1578 Percy Survey which refers to a "Water corn Mill in the holding of Robert Nicholson (of old rent 6/8) and now by the year 53/4." The site of this mill is not given but its position in the survey indicates it is likely to be at or near the present saw mill. During these early times the mill was almost certainly a manorial one and all local farmers would have been obliged to have their cereal crops ground there.

By the early 1750s records show a John Dixon to be paying 1/- a week rent (no increase since 1578!) but by 1758 there was trouble with the Lord of the Manor. A letter to John Dixon reads, "Whereas you farm of the Rt Hon Charles, Earl of Egremont, the water Corn Mill and Kiln ----- commonly called Netherwasdale Mill at and under the weekly rent of one shilling and whereas contrary to your agreement many repeated promises you have neglected to pay to the said Earl or his agents the arrears of Rent due from you for the said premises and are now greatly in arrears for the same. I do hereby give you notice that on the Eighth day of January next you are to quit and deliver up the possession of the said premises unto the said Earl given under my hand the Sixteenth day of December 1758. [signed] Robert Baynes, Steward and Agent of the Earl of Egremont". It seems however that John Dixon did not quit the mill for when he died about 1764 the mill passed to his widow and then to his son in 1774.

We can identify the site of this mill as, quite fortuitously, it was in 1774 that Thomas Donald published his map of Cumberland on which he identified a mill at Netherwasdale at the site of the present saw mill. As it is the only mill shown in the area it is reasonable to assume it is the one held by John Dixon's son in 1774 and by John Dixon himself in1750.

A possible cause of the problems of 1758 can be found in a document by William Noble dated 1759 in which he presents an estimate of the "Expenses of repairing the Water Corn Mill and Kiln at Netherwasdale." The mill was clearly in poor condition and a dispute over responsibility for repairs may have been behind the non payment of rent. The estimate includes two new "Millstones", equipment for fitting them and repairs to the "Kiln and Mill Walls". It was also stated that although the roof timbers were "in pretty good Repair---the thatch of the Roof is quite out of repair" The total repair bill was £17-17-6 of which the cost of obtaining and delivering the millstones was £11-0-0. “Straw for thatching and the Expense of the Thatching” was 15/- The workmen's wages were £2-10-0 and "ale to be given at putting up Millstones" 2/-.

Moving on to 1774, John Dixon’s widow, Elizabeth, sold the mill to her son, another John, for 5/- and only nine days later he sold it to “John Gibson of Little Ground in the Township of Netherwasdale” for £38-10-0. In 1797 Gibson sold the mill to Robert Wilkinson of Stangends for £100 and the following year Wilkinson bought his enfranchisement from “the Right Honourable George O’Brian, Earl of Egremont, Baron of Cockermouth”, for £98. We have an outline description of the mill at this time from a 1797 enfranchisement document. The "Water Cornmill" consists of "the drying Kiln, dwelling houses, garth [or] garden and Millhow, Mill Wheels, Mill Stones, Ark Ropes, Pulleys and all manner of fixtures, tackle and appurtenances belonging thereunto with the usual privileges of getting one day's work of peats yearly in the ----- Church Style Tenement. And the ancient and accustomed Mill Ponds, Mill Races and watercourse drains, weirs, sluices and floodgates and liberty to conduct water out of the River Irt ----" (Please note that the author, HML, has provided most of the punctuation in this extract. If you wish to see the original let me know.)

When Robert Wilkinson died in 1829 his estate was auctioned and Lot 5, the water corn mill, was clearly identified next to Force Bridge on the map included with the auction details. The estate appears to have been bought by William and Robert Nicholson as in 1839 they made an agreement to sell part of it, Easthwaite farm, to Robert Benson and included the option of renting the Netherwasdale saw mill. The mill had therefore changed its use sometime between 1829 and 1839.

The mill was bought by Stansfeld Rawson of Wasdale Hall about 1840 and, on his death, passed to his son Charles Rawson of Galesyke in 1856. It stayed with the Galesyke estate but it seems to have fallen into disuse. It is not shown on the 1898 Ordnance Survey map, although it was shown on the 1862 version, and is not mentioned in Bulmer's 1901 Directory. It is, however, included in the sale of the Galesyke estate in 1904 although the mill house was recorded as being rented by the School Committee. They, in turn, had sub-let it to a school mistress.

In 1906, though, a new water wheel was made for the mill by William Heron of Gosforth. It apparently worked well until the 1960s, bar problems with insufficient water supply, but then power from the water wheel was replaced by electricity. The remains of the undershot wheel are shown below.

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I have been doing research into the iron ore miners who came to Boot in Eskdale in the 1880s to work the Nab Gill Iron ore mine. The Census returns, which we still fill in every ten years, are available for as far back as 1851 and it was the 1881 census for Eskdale which first interested me in the changes in Boot. The census shows that there were 50 miners living in the village in that year. They came from all over the country, but predominantly from Devon and Cornwall. Names like Rosewarne, Creber, Kitts and Keenance sound strangely to someone who has come to expect Tyson, Porter, Hartley and Nicholson when looking at documents about Eskdale's past.

Nab Gill Mine

The Ravenglass and Eskdale railway had been built in 1875 to take iron ore from the mines at Nab Ghyll, and both the Whitehaven Iron Mines and the South Cumberland Iron Company had interest in mining in the valley. Most of the miners lived in cottages provided by these companies. The 1881 census gives the names, ages, occupations and place of birth of all the inhabitants, and shows that the valley was probably even more full of 'off-comers' then than it is now.

Three members of the Pharaoh family, Caroline Hesketh, Ann Bates and I, are researching its history in and around Eskdale, and more widely, from the late eighteenth century.

Crispin Pharaoh married Sarah Tyson at St. Catherine’s church in 1771, and was buried there in 1807. He held various manorial offices and was chapel warden in 1789. No record of his baptism has been found, and variants of a colourful legend about his being discovered as an abandoned infant, at or near Brotherilkeld, are quite widely known and documented. The forename Crispin has been in use in the family ever since.

The first Crispin Pharaoh, who lived at Mill house in Boot, and then at Bakerstead in Miterdale, was a waller. Many of his descendants were wallers, masons and builders. His eldest son, also Crispin (1772 – 1851), held the licence of the Mason’s Arms in Boot (now the Boot Inn) in the 1820’s, but had to give it up and accept parish relief due to ill-health. He and his large family later moved to Netherwasdale, where in the mid-nineteenth century one of his sons was the parish clerk and another was the postmaster.

Other members of the family were later publicans at the Boonwood in Gosforth (now the Red Admiral), the King George in Eskdale, and Wasdalehead, where Wilson Pharaoh (1914 - 66) was a well-known local figure and champion wrestler. His nephew Mark (born 1931) threw the discus for England at the Helsinki and Melbourne Olympics in the 1950’s.

The two other sons of the first Crispin Pharaoh were agricultural labourers and wallers. John (1777 – 1837) had a long struggle with poverty and illness. In 1826, his daughter Sarah was sensationally murdered at Gosforth by her reluctant husband and the father of her stillborn child, Robert Fox; he was convicted and hanged.

Crispin’s youngest son, Isaac, born in 1787, was the only brother to move to a town. He died in Egremont in 1855. One of his daughters moved via Millom to Ravenglass, where Jack Pharaoh (1899 – 1982) later became a celebrated clog-maker, petrol-pump attendant and raconteur.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, most of the family left Cumberland for industrial Lancashire, the Durham coalfields, or South Africa, Australia, New Zealand or America. A few still live locally, and others have returned.

We would be pleased to hear from anyone else researching our family, or with information to contribute.  Please email to paulpharaoh@btinternet.com

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