Image ID: 42772

Water Mill, The Beck, Newark, 1930

Courtesy of Bennett Collection

The Beck
Norwell
Nottinghamshire
England

A watermill is known to have stood in Norwell at the time of Domesday (1086). The later two-storey brick and tile building seen here was located beside the Beck, about 100 yards from the point where the stream turns to flow alongside the Norwell to Bathley Road. The waterwheel and tackle were mainly of wood. Guy Hemmingway, in his History of Norwell (unpublished typescript, 1983) notes The mill was used for grinding corn when the village was almost self-supporting, corn being ground for animal and possibly also for households who baked their own bread - an example of the small brick, built-in beehive-shaped oven of the type used 300 years ago is still to be seen in the village. The mill stood on a small farm, owned in 1844 by Mr Samuel Wheatcroft. Apart from corn delivered by farmers for grinding, it was a familiar sight in the village at the end of the 19th century to see the miller with his horse and cart collecting corn in small lots and returning in a few days with the ground flour. The last person to work the mill and farm full-time was Mr George Beckett, a steward of the Methodist Chapel and, in 1889, teacher at the Sunday School, which then had 71 scholars on the register. He died on 1 July 1925, aged 82, and is buried in Norwell Churchyard. The mill gradually ceased to be used and fell into decay. During the 1950s a teacher took his class to see the remains and salvaged a cog-wheel made of apple-wood. The ruins of the mill were cleared away about 1960. Fifty years before, local farmers used to drive their sheep to the mill pond, where the water was dammed up, to be pushed in and washed before being sheared.

Date: Sep-30

Organisation Reference: NCCE003623

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