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The History of Kettlewell Village - Arthur Raistrick
800 years of mills and milling
The oldest visible evidence of the community activities in Kettlewell is of course the lynchets in some of the fields. These are evidence of the pre-Norman agriculture, the plough lands on which grain was grown.
For a long time the grain was ground in hand mills, or querns" - the name Whernside means "the hillside where millstones were got" and derives from the same word as quern. At an early date a water mill was built and this replaced the hand mills.
The mill was noted in 1265 when Wymerus was the miller and in 1293 it was valued at 20s. 6d., the property of Robert de Grey, Lord of the Manor.
In 1616 the mill was held of the Lord of the Manor, then the Crown, and various lessees.
When the manor was sold in 1656 the mill dues were reserved to the Trust Lords but the mill was let in two portions, one of them to the Bolland family who held it until 1805. The grant of the mill included the kilns for drying corn, the goits, dams, hoppers and outbuildings, etc. for a rent of £1.5.10. a year, being part of the ancient rent of £ 17. 13. 7 annually paid "to the King's Most Excellent Majesty for the manor of Kettlewell."
In 1768 the other half of the mill was held by Edward Prest who mortgaged it with one Mary Brook. In 1787 it was again used as security for a mortgage of £1,100. This mortgage was bought by John Bolland in 1792, who thus secured both halves of the mill. He leased the whole to John Whitehead for £500 and certain fees but in 1802 Whitehead was bankrupt. His son was allowed to continue in possession but in 1805 there is a new deed by which the mill starts an entirely new career.
It is evident here as in all parts of the dale that the increase of the corn market at Skipton, the import of cheaper wheat and the changes in economic structure brought the useful life of the local corn mills to an end. Bolland and Whitehead released and conveyed to Samual Whitehead
"all those two messuages in Kettlewell.. now in possession of Richard Calvert and William Calvert converted into and used by them as workshops in the manufacture of cotton.. with the streams, dams, weirs etc."
that were part of the mill. Next year a conveyance for £700 describes the property as "formerly used as a corn mill... now occupied as a Mill for the Manufacturing of Cotton." The two houses had already been converted to workshops.
Calvert was short of money and the mill was mortgaged several times, but seems to have had a short life as it does not appear in the West Riding Gazeteer of 1822 nor in any subsequent year.
Long before the end of the century the buildings were pulled down after a history of not less than 800 years of activity, with peasants, miners, White Canons and the lords of Middleham Castle as well as the Trust lords of Kettlewell all being concerned with it.
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