History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

194 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: vol. iv.
^,,,„,J.XVtt t o mills, one a windmill and the other a watermill ;
KING S MILLS, .
,,
LIVERPOOL, worth by the year five marks "— precisely the same
27. West milling estate, and of identically the same value, as
Derby Mill, that he held in Liverpool. Also at West Derby he
held *'
an old castle " and a meadow of twenty acres ;
while " the tenants of the town render to the lord for
Chancery Rec,
Inq. p. m.
use of a certain way through the middle of the meadow
, ,
^ „ r . • r i
i
twelve — pence yearly items provmg useful m the
identification of the site of the mill.
Of the watermill nothing more is known, as it early
disappeared ;
place-names ''
but
memory of it long survived in the
Millpool" and " Milldam Hey." At the
inquisition on the death of Earl Thomas in 1326
it was
stated he held a field of ten acres called the Millpool ;
and in 1796, in the admittance of the Rev. Glover
Moore, rector of Halsall, as copyhold tenant of certain
land near West Derby Church, occurs the Milldam
Hey, or field. In 1826 this field, among others, was
purchased by Lord Sefton, and added to Croxteth
Park. A small brook exists in the locality ; and
across the adjacent Meadow Lane * is a culvert, through
which it is believed the old mill-stream still runs.
The windmill of 1297 occurs also in the inquisition
of 1326 ; the earl having then possessed '' a windmill,
let fi"om old time at iocs, a year ; and a watermill, let
from old time at 40s. a year "— higher rentals even
than that of Eastham Mill, Liverpool, as late as 1440.
In 1348 the bailiff of West Derby accounts for the
rents of the twenty-acre meadow, two windmills, and a
horse-mill. The two windmills would undoubtedly
be those of West Derby and its nearest neighbour,
Harl. MSS., Accers Mill ; and they appear, again in conjunction
6461.28. with the horse-mill, in a similar compotus of 1430.
In 1446 the accounts of Norris, bailiff, afford some
glimpses of West Derby
windmill and horse-mill :—
* Formerly called Castle Lane.