Building record BSM 101 - Hold Farmhouse

Hold Farm is the earliest secular watermill in Britain. It is currently listed at grade II as a ‘former farmhouse, said to have been a flax mill’. Medieval and Tudor watermills are exceptionally rare, with fragmentary examples surviving at four or five monastic sites in the country. It illustrates the standard layout of early mills, which typically straddled their mill streams and required a separate wheel for each pair of stones before the advent of multiple gearing in the 17th century. The original structure consists of a brick ground storey with a timber-framed upper storey in five bays and an intact crown-post roof. A pair of finely moulded brick arches in the front and rear elevations framed the mill race which passed through the building and drove a pair of wheels within (the water diverted upstream from the nearby brook). The framing of the upper storey is largely exposed and contained roll-moulded window mullions designed for external display, although the internal timbers are plain and utilitarian, but much of the brickwork is now hidden by modern render. Photographs taken during the extensive renovation and extension of the building in 1988 reveal evidence of additional arched doorways and large windows. The building continued further to both east and west (beneath the gravel drive and the eastern extension of 1988) but was truncated after its conversion into a farmhouse during the 17th century. The front (southern) range is an addition of the mid-19th century. Excavations of 1993 uncovered substantial foundations to the west but unfortunately the importance of the site was not recognised in 1988 and the opportunity to excavate elsewhere was not taken (S1).