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198 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: vol. iv.
IV.
KING'S MILLS
LIVERPOOL.
28. Appendix .
Their
Immediate
Successors.
Text, II. 295.
tradition of these or yet a relic of the mills remains. In the year
1768 Enfield's map of Liverpool shows no fewer than twenty-seven
of these mills.* Subjoined are a few notes of the principal estab-
lishments that thus took up and splendidly developed the trade
of the ancient king's mills of Liverpool and ; among them are some
personal recollections kindly imparted by a former member of the
local craft, Mr. George Lunt. These may perhaps be considered
an appropriate memento of an order of things that in its turn has
passed entirely away.
Mills on the North Shore.
Several mills under various ownerships stood on the north shore
of the Mersey.
" "
Townsend Mill (modern). By the courtesy of the Lancashire
and Yorkshire Railway Company, I find from their title-deeds of
this site that in 1742 Peter Furnival leased a certain plot of land
adjoining Mill Lane North to one James VVilcock. The land passed
to Wilcock's son-in-law, John Adamson who on ; November 19, 1792,
renewed the lease of "all that piece of land situate or being on
the strand or shore of the river Mersey, on part whereof the said
John Adamson hath erected or is erecting a wind corn mill." This
was the modern Townsend Mill which of course does not ;
appear in
the maps of 1768 and 1785, and is first seen in Howarth's map of
1803. Its tall tower, seven stories high, prominently erected near
high-water mark, formed a conspicuous object on the long line of
sand hills and gorseland at the entrance to the river. Adamson
seems to have left Townsend in a few years and started in
Bridgewater Street the first steam corn mill of Liverpool, which was
burned down m 1819. About 1834, after the destruction of Bootle
Windmill, Jeremiah Shaw occupied Townsend, where he met with
his death in a somewhat singular manner. The most terrific storm
of the century at Liverpool occurred on Sunday and Monday,
* Townsend Mill, almost in the centre of the map, at the junction of Folly
Lane (Islington) and London Road, may readily be identified. it Adjoining on
the north are two windmills at the top of Clayton Street. Eastward are two
mills in Folly Lane, and close by the three Gallows Mills in London Road.
Returning to Townsend, four mills, slightly to the south, are ranged along
Lime Street on the site of the L. & N.W.R. Company's station. One in the
rear is "The White Mill" of Copperas Hill (also on the site of the railway
station), associated with a mysterious tragedy. To the south-east are two mills in
Mount Pleasant and Brownlow Hill, adjoining the former being the inn where
was born William Roscoe, the Florentine historian. Near the Observatory is
another. Farther south still is a group of three, standing on the site of the
future Cathedral. Below, towards the river, may be discerned one in Park
and, almost on the shore, a tide-mill, beside a pool fed by the Toxteth
Lane ;
Park stream.
Once more returning to Townsend, the two Middle Mills are seen due west:
three Bevington Bush (or Scotland Road) Mills to the north, the tall tower of
one of which, still standing, is used as a warehouse for the modern roller-mill
adjoining: one westward, near the corner of Pinfold Lane (Vauxhall Road) and
Tithebarne Street : and. at the extreme north near the river, a single one this
;
being the modern " Wishing-gate Mill," near which, twenty years later, was
built the new "Townsend Mill."