Low Mill stone polishing mill, Dentdale

Description

Low Mill stone polishing mill – wheel pit MYD36733 (c) YDNPA, 2023

The associated High Mill was built around 1780 (or possibly earlier) as a cotton-carding and spinning mill. Between 1800 and 1810 it was converted to cut Dent ‘marble’ quarried nearby. High Mill is now a house. It is a high, three-storey building, built of thinly coursed stone rubble. The site of its wheel pit may lie to the north. Low Mill lay to the west of Stonehouse, the former quarry manager’s house. It may have been converted from an older mill or built specifically as a marble polishing mill with extensions to house sawing machinery added around 1815. It survived as a stone polishing mill until 1907 and has since been demolished. The big polishing wheels at Low Mill were powered by a water wheel that survived until around 1920. The remains of Low Mill’s wheel pit can be seen from the roadside near Stonehouse. At the south end of the wheel pit stand two large blocks of carved stone one each side, one with a semi-circular recess. These may have supported part of the gear train for the wheel or possibly part of the marble polishing machinery.

Source:

Armstrong, Jean (1982) ‘Dent Marble Works’ SDHS Occ Newsletter. No 3 pp11-12

Boulton, David (1985) Discovering Upper Dentdale. Dent: Dales Historical Monographs

Raistrick, Arthur (1951) ‘The Story of Dent Marble’ The Dalesman. Vol 13:9 pp442-445