In the foreground of this Kodachrome slide from 1973 is the sad sight of the Mill Pool in King Street. A pool no longer, it looks very forlorn having been filled in with all kinds of rubble, scrap metal and junk to form another piece of building land.
The pool once powered the Corn Mill in Mill Lane off Kinderton Street, a 17th Century building said by some to be the oldest brick building in the town. The Mill building was (and is) out of shot to the right. About fifty yards out of shot, actually.
Mill Pool was fed by a mill stream which as descibed here (in the first Middlewich photo we ever posted on Facebook) supplied water to the water tower at Middlewich station before running into a small pond on the other side of King Street, where we all fished for sticklebacks as children, and then through a culvert under the road into the Mill Pool. The water from the pool, after powering the mill, drained into our old friend the River Croco.
Presumably that stream still runs underneath the filled-in pool in a culvert which still drains into the River Croco close to Town Bridge Motors. Another investigation is called for when the warmer weather arrives.
Town Bridge Motors now occupy the old Corn Mill (Though my brain will insist that it's called 'Old Mill Motors'. Was the firm ever called that? Is there another firm somewhere called that? Or is it just such a good name for a car repair business that my brain won't let go of it?).
(see the comment below - Ed)
In the background is the also less than photogenic farmyard belonging to Pool Head Farm (the buildings to the left, nearest the road, always being referred to as the 'stack yard'.
The Mill Pool was, at one time, separated from the road and footpath by a high brick wall which ran all the way down to the end of King Street and round the corner into Kinderton Street.
Modern houses have been built on the site of the pool and people can be forgiven for not realising that it ever existed.
Only the name of the adjacent modern version of Pool Head Farm commemorates Middlewich's lost mill pool.
First published 12th January 2012
Revised and re-published 12th January 2018
I remember the Mill Pool very well from when I was a pupil at St Mary's. I seem to remember there was a break in the said wall which was the entrance to Moreton's farmyard and the stackyard building was where the hay bales were stored. I think there was also a small pool on the opposite side of the road just before the school playground.
ReplyDeletetownbridge motors was indeed "old mill motors" from 1971 untill frank edwards took over from my dad "malcolm poole" in the late 70's
ReplyDeleteAh! Thanks Dave!
DeleteI remember as a young lad when the Mill Pool froze over in winter we used to go sliding on it.Someone must have been using the water then (1940's) because every now and then the water level would drop and the ice would sag and break up. The opening in the wall led to the dairy where I used to collect the milk. I've visited the area on Google earth and couldn't recognise it, it sure has changed.
ReplyDelete