Summary

Water mill and miller's house dating from the 18th century.The buildings and their fittings are generally well preserved, especially the house, which retains most of its major and minor features.

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Description

(1) Water mill. Late C18 with some mid-C19 alterations. Random sandstone rubble with brick dressings and tile roof. East gable: two storeys, stable door on ground, loft on first floor, 2-light casement to attic. Overshot iron mill wheel to west gable, gearing remains inside, spur gear retaining pit-wheel, wallower, great spur wheel and crown wheel; had two pairs of stones (listing description last amended in 1986).

(2) The mill and miller's house date from the middle of the 18th century, probably shortly before 1757. The house was built with an attached stable and hayloft, now incorporated into it. The buildings and their fittings are generally well preserved, especially the house, which retains most of its major and minor features, and the stable and hayloft are clearly recognisable, although the loft floor has been removed long ago. The mill also is relatively little altered and retains a nucleus of what may be the original machinery, although much of it is 19th century.

Both mill and house are built of stone, partly with brick dressings, both having two storeys with an attic floor in the roof space, and clay-tiled roofs.

(3-4) In 2010 Birmingham Archaeology undertook archaeological building recording and evaluation of the standing remains of Knowles Mill and the area of the meadows associated with the mill. Historical research has shown that the mill was one of nine possible mills of which seven mills have been located on the Dowles Brook. This included mills that were initially used for corn milling but later mills were used for a variety of industries including a furnace and clay grinding.

The majority of the remains of the mill structure appear to be 18th-century in date, probably dating to around 1757 when the mill was announced for sale in the local paper. The original wooden mill mechanism survives only in sections; as the upright shaft of the mechanism and possibly the crown wheel. The mill mechanism appears to have been almost entirely replaced in the mid-19th century with a cast-iron over-shot wheel and mechanism.

Some 20th-/ 21st-century repair has been undertaken on the wooden structural support of the mill mechanism. The beams of the first and second floor survive intact, but except for a small area on the second floor little remains of the original floor surfaces as these were removed in 2006 in order to allow a more open view of the mill mechanism to be achieved. Evidence of subsidiary industrial use suggested there was also a fulling mill for leather capping mentioned in an advert of 1775 but no evidence was forthcoming from the current investigations.

Four evaluation trenches were excavated. Trench 1 revealed evidence that the cast-iron mill wheel survived partially preserved beneath rubble collapse in the wheel pit. Trench 2 revealed the remains of the head race culvert that would have fed the pen trough of the over-shot mill wheel. Trench 3 and 4 were excavated either side of a bridge associated with the dam and weir above the mill pond head race. The evidence from the trenches suggested water flow was restricted to the mill pond by a stone culvert preventing it refilling and eventually the entire mill race and pond silted up. Some water flow is still present today as an aquifer still exists feeding the mill pond in the winter months.

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