Last updated 05:37, Friday, 15 August 2008

An early mention of Upperby Mill was in 1244-1245AD when the men of that village paid the sheriff of Cumberland 30 shillings for a licence to have a mill there, probably not the first.

Historic use: Upperby Mill when used as the county laundry. In 1924 little had changed since the 1890s

Upperby formed part of the demesne of Carlisle Castle and thus belonged to the King. As the King’s representative the sheriff held responsibility for royal demesnes in this area until, in 1275, they were given over to the “keeper of the King’s demesnes north of the Trent”. He in turn let certain parts to four leading citizens of Carlisle in 1281 or 1282, one being the mayor, Alexander de Boulton; this grant including the “the socage of Stanwix and Upperby”.

Fluctuations in rents gathered from the tenants of Upperby in the early 14th century were attributed by Henry Summerson in Medieval Carlisle, “probably because of the Scottish raids”, which came in the aftermath of the battle of Bannockburn (1314), when the Scots had the upper hand.

Sometimes there were other disputes that led to destruction and in 1396 or 1397 William de Aglionby “was said to have quarrelled with John Skelton and his tenants in Upperby, assaulting them and destroying their crops”, stated Dr Summerson.

Trouble was again experienced in the 15th century. In 1427 Upperby Mill was “totally wasted”. While the demesne had been let separately, the mill remained royal and the responsibility of the sheriff, but in 1449 he was unable “to account for the multure”, Upperby Mill having been “totally wasted and destroyed by the Scots”.

The mill was rebuilt because in 1474 it was one of three mills listed at Carlisle. It remained standing because Henry Summerson stated, “some hundred years later the royal mill at Upperby was being farmed by a consortium of three citizens”.

A windmill was mentioned in a survey of 1608 at Upperby but it does not appear in a subsequent survey of 1611, nor is it marked on the accompanying map when the watermill is. One of the boundaries used in the 1611 survey is the millstream which supplied the power for the waterwheel of the mill.

At some point in the 18th century Upperby Mill ceased to be part of the demesne and in 1782 John Dockray, the owner, offered the water corn mill for sale along with land adjoining. In the Cumberland Pacquet advert he enticed prospective purchases by stating other uses: “The situation is the most eligible for carrying on calico printing or any other business where machines are to be carried by water, or water for bleaching is wanted.”

But it remained as a corn mill and it was there in 1829 that the Carlisle Journal announced the death of the miller Thomas McKnight aged 72.

It was probably his son, also Thomas, who was the Upperby miller attacked by a highway robber in 1832. His pocket book was taken but the Pacquet reported that this was a memoranda book and “had only bills in it”. Thomas and Mary McKnight of Upperby Mill were to appear at sessions for an assault on Henry Atkinson in 1834.

Next at the mill was Joseph Taylor mentioned in 1841 keeping pigs. But in 1844 he was to pay a final dividend in bankruptcy.

Listed in 1846 was David Bewley, corn miller and it may have been his son, Frank, reported in the September 1852 Journal, entangled in the wheel at Upperby Mill. By the time villagers heard the screams and arrived to help Mrs Bewley had stopped the mill and Frank was “got out awfully mangled”. The newspaper thought, however, there were “hopes of recovery”.

In recounting his memories of Upperby at a lecture he gave in 1891, James Batey said Bewley later opened, on his own, a grocery business in Botchergate and about 1856 the mill was “converted from corn to alabaster by Mr Rushton”. There were ovens for baking gypsum before grinding, said Mr Batey “and here too was discovered Robinson’s cement”. From an 1861 directory we know that Joseph Robinson was an alabaster manufacturer at Upperby Mill so Rushton was there only a short time. It was Joseph Robinson who took out a patent for his cement made with plaster of Paris.

Joseph Robinson and Co. built a new mill at Knot Hill in the early 1870s and Upperby Mill was let to Thomas Barrow as a sawmill and for charcoal grinding. When fire destroyed part of the mill in 1882 Barrow was charged with arson.

As a result the mill “with the meadowland and water rights” were purchased from John Thomlinson, the director of Joseph Robinson and Co., “by Robert Briggs, manufacturer of Shaddongate,” who the Journal stated in April 1883 “is reconstructing them into works for the manufacture of cotton wool”.

Another fire in November 1887 was not the fault of Mr Briggs, the Journal identifying the source as a “devil surrounded by bales of cotton”. Plans show that Briggs added a chimney in 1890, probably when water power was abandoned and a steam laundry constructed alongside in 1897.

The newspaper said of the laundry in October “the building is completed and the machinery is being put in by Messrs Manlove, Alliott and Co. of Nottingham and London”.

By 1900 the mill had become the County Laundry and Wadding Co. As this came under the Factory Act a prosecution followed in 1906 for failing to keep the buildings clean. The prosecutor alleged that the interior had not been whitewashed since 1902 and a fine was imposed. Further court action came in 1910 over share dealing in the company.

Fire was a constant threat and another in 1913 closed the wadding works but the laundry continued. While the laundry flourished the building materials of the former wadding works were sold in 1919.

The County Laundry continued through the 1920s being taken over by Lakeland Laundries. But the Upperby site was inadequate and new buildings were constructed on London Road in 1936. In that year Michael Thompson Ltd. Submitted plans for a building yard at the former laundry site and that firm is still there today.