History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

SOME FEUDAL MILLS. 191
credited with incidentally preserving Wavertree Mill ,iv.
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T^ ,
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on Its ancient site. ror, despite the prohibition, Liverpool.
., . . KING'S MILLS,
within a few years* time tall trees in the thickly 26 Wav rtr
wooded Heathfield Park, which fringed the very edge Mill.
of the little mill-crpft, began to cut off the prevailing
south and south-west winds ; causing Foster, the miller,
to complain to his landlord, Bamber Gascoyne. The
latter, knowing he had legal redress available, instead
of contemplating moving the mill complained in his
turn to the offender, Colonel Bourne, of Heathfield
Hall ; whereupon the irate colonel— resolved neither
to have his trees lopped, nor to be grumbled at by the
humble miller on the other side of his park fence—
promptly leased the mill himself and silenced the
unfortunate Foster. Ere long the colonel was laid
in the neighbouring churchyard ; and Gascoyne also
died, leaving the estates and mill to his daughter ; by
whom they were conveyed in marriage to William,
of whose
Marquis of Salisbury, in the possession
descendant, the present marquis, they remain. Though
the mill had lost its soke rights, it was worked till near
the close of the nineteenth century ; the last tenant
of any moment being Charles Taylor, who held it from
1859 to 1875 ; its capacity during this period being,
with two pairs of stones, six bushels of wheat or eight
bushels of coarse grain per hour. It was permanently
closed in 1889.
This, **the windmill called Watre Mylne " of 1475,
enjoys unique distinction in being the only one of
the many ancient mills in and around Liverpool which
still exists. In much the same form as it was then,
and on its original site near Wavertree Church, this
mill, which by the modern extension of Liverpool is
now comprised within the boundaries of the town
with which it had for centuries been so closely asso-
ciated, is one of the three edifices in Liverpool which