PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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The Manor Mills were three tide-mills erected in the marshland at the 'Sourpool', between Plymouth and Stonehouse, when Ralph de Valletort granted the Prior of Plympton the right to build a mill and dam and included the right of access. This was during the reign of King Henry VIII, making them probably the oldest mills in the area. After coming into the ownership of Plymouth Corporation in 1440, a dispute between the Prior and the Corporation resulted in an inquisition being held that found the mills, now called the Town Mills, to be worth more than £10 per annum. They were a valuable asset to the Town and they guarded their rights to provide this vital service. In 1570 they made a bye-law that no man should grind their corn elsewhere and that any miller doing wrong in this matter should forfeit three times the illicit corn he ground. The corn miller in Elizabethan days ran a monopoly. In 1573, the Town Mills were being leased to William and John Hawkins at £42 per annum, a large and very useful sum of money for the Corporation to have. They also bought a house (said to have later been the Pope's Head Inn) where the corn was weighed before going on to the Mills. A horse and cart was kept in constant readiness to go and collect the corn from the owner's residence. In 1581 the Mills were being leased by Sir Francis Drake, although Drake apparently claimed he bought them from the Hawkins family. But the Sourpool was silting up and in 1591 work was undertaken to drain it and turn it over to meadow land. At the same time Drake lost no time in making use of the water available in his newly constructed leat and erected six mills along its course, two at Widey and four within the Borough, collectively known as the Town Mills. In gratitude the Corporation reduced the rental on the former Manor Mills from £40 to £30 per annum. However, the Manor Mills ceased operating in 1592 and by 1596 were being referred to as the 'late salt mills'. A deed dated 1680 refers to a lane as 'leading towards the old decayed mills some time called sourpool mills'. Sometime around 1710 the site was used for paper mills but the Corporation, never wanting to miss a trick, extracted some income from the site of the old mills by charging people for taking animals across the dam. The Corporation's income from the Mills rose over the years from £10 in 1488 to £21 in 1495, £24 in 1531 and £42 in 1573, but it did fall back to £40 just before closure in 1591-92.
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