The Town Mill
- what's in a name?
The Town Mill is so called because the town owned it for most of its life. As a result, there are extensive references about expenditure on the mill in the old Lyme Regis Borough Council records, many of which still exist and are kept in the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester. These, together with other county and national records, enable us to highlight the major developments affecting the Mill over almost 1000 years.

Domesday Book provides the first documentary evidence that there was a mill in Lyme in 1086, but it is not clear where that mill was located. However, a thirteenth century court record indicates there was probably a mill on the present Town Mill site in 1280.

The Late Medieval Mill
1340 -1640
The first definitive evidence of a Town Mill came in 1340.The burgesses of the town petitioned King Edward III for a mill because they were 'oppressed with so many continually increasing causes and adversities'. As a result, the King granted a licence to build a new water mill on low ground by an old mill, with a trench to take water from the river to drive two water wheels. Using the technology of the time, each waterwheel drove one set of millstones.

The Civil War and New Building
1640 - 1680
Unlike most of Dorset, Lyme Regis supported Parliament in the Civil War. During the famous Siege of Lyme in 1644, 43 houses were destroyed or badly burnt. A contemporary report by John Vicars of Lyme recorded that 'there was scarce a house in the whole Towne that was not battered'.  During restoration of the mill in the late 1990s , a layer of charcoal, dating from the middle of the seventeenth century, was uncovered near the south wall, suggesting that the mill itself was damaged at this time.

After the War the town was rebuilt with the aid of government grants and Royalist war reparations of 2000 oak trees, 'for re-edifying and building of their houses and ships, mills and fulling racks for cloth, burnt and lost in the siege'.

 Borough records show that £25-12s was spent on the mill in 1648, about 13% of the total annual borough expenditure. The mill building was rebuilt and enlarged in stone and oak under a half-cruck roof. The main walls of the present mill date back to this 1648 building work. Power continued to come from the two external overshot water wheels, about 12ft in diameter, on the north wall, with each wheel still driving one set of millstones. Indeed, these wheels may well have survived the siege unscathed. Finally, a Miller’s house was added to the eastern end of the mill in 1661.

Eighteenth Century Improvements
1700 - 1800
Throughout the eighteenth century there was a continuing search for increased power to boost flour production. Developments in milling technology helped the search, and in 1728 the gearing of one of the 1648 wheels was modified to create a ‘treble mill’, where one waterwheel drove two sets of millstones. Subsequently, the waterwheel configuration of 1648 was changed, with the installation of a large breastshot wheel, about 16ft in diameter and 5ft wide, located on the outside of the north wall.

Further major changes to the mill building and its equipment were made around the end of the eighteenth century. The roof was rebuilt to provide more working space and storage areas. Some of the oak beams from the 1648 roof were re-used to provide four of the new roof trusses, and one of the existing purlins is engraved with the initials 'BG 1797'.

In addition to the changes to the size of the mill building, a new wheel was installed inside the building in the position that we see the wheel today. The interior location was chosen because it was larger than the existing outside wheelpit and enabled the millwrights to install a much more powerful wheel. About 13ft in diameter and 7ft wide, the new overshot wheel replaced the external breastshot wheel and increased the available driving power to about 8.5 HP. New gearing probably enabled the new waterwheel to drive three sets of millstones. The design of the existing vertical shaft and crown wheel suggests they are also original parts from these 1797 changes.

The Victorian Mill
1838 - 1900
Lyme Regis Borough Council sold the mill in 1838 to pay-off council debts unrelated to the mill. Sold as Lot 18, the mills, house and premises raised £305. In the later nineteenth century the mill building was refurbished to meet the needs of a thriving and prosperous milling business. In 1888 the millwrights Samsons of Bridport refitted the mill with new machinery and an iron waterwheel with metal buckets. Further modernisation followed and by 1898 the Town Mill was described as a steam-driven steel roller mill, though the internal water wheel was still in place and may have been used for milling animal feed.

The Decline of the Mill
1901 -1991
Increasing competition from large modern roller mills, imported grain and improved communications made many traditional wind and water mills uneconomic. Their decline was rapid and thousands of mills went out of business, including the Town Mill itself, which closed in 1926. The mill was put up for auction in 1928, but no commercial offers were made so Lyme Regis Borough Council bought it back for £800 to use as a council works depot. The Miller’s dwelling house was subsequently sold into private hands.

Sadly, the 1888 Victorian iron water wheel was removed in 1936 and the fabric of the mill was allowed to decay until, by the 1970s, it had become derelict. In 1983 John Fowles wrote of the need to save this historically important water mill. Despite this, in 1991 West Dorset District Council announced plans to demolish and redevelop part of the mill site. Action to rescue the mill then began.

Restoration of the Mill
1991-2001
Through the efforts of a group of dedicated volunteers, led by David West, the Town Mill Trust was started in 1991. When  professional surveys confirmed that the derelict mill could be saved, the Trust was formally constituted in 1994 with the aims of renovating the mill buildings for the benefit of people in Lyme and restoring the milling equipment to working order.

Following archaeological recording surveys, which started in 1992,  refurbishment of the buildings began in 1995. The initial phase of renovation included the provision of art galleries, studios, workshops and a café/restaurant. During the last phase of renovation, completed in 2001, the Miller's house was purchased and converted for use as the mill shop, a community room and offices. Finally a salvaged Victorian waterwheel was installed early in 2001 and the milling machinery was returned to full working order. 

The restored Town Mill was formally opened to the public by John Fowles on 26 May 2001, when grain was milled again for the first time in 75 years.

2006 - Footbridge over the River Lim. The restored mill and its attractions have proved to be a popular destination for both local people and visitors to Lyme Regis. In 2006 the Mill Trustees sought to improve pedestrian access to the mill and oversaw the development and installation of a new footbridge over the River Lim. The bridge links the mill site to the town's main shopping area of Broad Street. It has proved to be very welcome, not just for mill visitors, but also as a very useful additional means of general access around the town.

2007 - Hydro-Electric System. In March 2007 a new hydro-electric system was officially opened at the mill by children from three local schools - Woodroffe School, St Michael's Primary School and Mrs Ethelston's Primary School. The fully automatic system enables the mill to use the renewable energy of the River Lim to produce ‘green’ electricity for the mill and for the National Grid, whilst retaining the mill’s traditional function of producing stone-ground flour with water power.

The successful completion of the hydro project was made possible by the vision of the Mill Trustees in initiating the project in 2004, the generosity of funding sponsors, Clearskies Renewable Energy Grants and the EDF Energy Green Fund, project engineers HydroGeneration Ltd who designed and installed the system and a small band of mill volunteers who oversaw the management of the project. The overall cost of the installed system was about £60,000.

2009 - Purchase of the Old Malthouse. The Malthouse had long been part of the milling scene at the Town Mill, but in the 1920s it was transformed into an electricity generating station, with four large generators driven by diesel engines. It became redundant in the 1940s with the arrival of the National Grid, though the building remained the property of Western Power Distribution when the mill itself was renovated in 2001.

Following fund raising and the award of grants in 2009, the Town Mill Trust was able to purchase the disused Malthouse  and reinstate it as part of the Town Mill complex. The building is now being re-roofed and refurbished to provide a large community area with office space above, plus a microbrewery at the western end of the building. It is anticipated that the whole building will be up and running in 2010.

The Town Mill
Mill Lane, Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3PU, England
Tel: 01297 443579     e-mail info@townmill.org.uk