IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Bourne Road, COLCHESTER, CO2 7LP

The stones are gone however the crown wheel can still be turned. The glass panel shows the location of the wheel.

National Trust sign for Bourne Mill near to Old Heath, Essex.

The concrete leat onto the waterwheel housed hidden to visitors under the building.

I managed to sneak this shot from the alleyway that leads through from Bourne Road to Stalin Road. Taken in the evening - in rather tricky light - at a time when the National Trust property was closed. An inscription on the south-facing gable dates the building to 1591. From the flamboyant style of the gables it is clear that it wasn't meant to be anything as mundane as a water-mill (the conversion came centuries later). Pevsner and others suggest that the building was originally a fishing lodge - presumably on the sporting estate of some well-to-do gentleman.

The photo was taken on a brief evening visit, from public space (in Bourne Road) rather than from within the National Trust grounds. I chose the angle in the hope of showing the building's most distinctive features: the elaborate gables, with their array of pinnacles. Not a great deal seems to be known about the building's origins, but a tablet set in the south gable is inscribed 'Thomas Lucas, miles, me fecit Anne Domini 1591'. So it seems its builder was a soldier. I've seen it suggested that Lucas was of Dutch or Flemish origin - which could well explain the fantastical gables. Whatever his origins, Lucas's design strikes me as very un-English - unlike almost anything in England other than Image The mill stands on a bank which dams a stream known as the Bourne. At one stage in its history the pond served as a fish-pond for the local abbey, but it isn't clear whether the pond was constructed for that purpose or to serve an earlier mill. In any case, the consensus is that Lucas's building was intended as a fishing lodge, not for any industrial purpose: http://www.colchesterhistoricbuildingsforum.org.uk/drupal/node/251

The pit wheel and wallower with nothing in the way to ruin it for photographers.

The bottom entrance into the pit wheel area.

The entrance into the mill with the entrance for water being the leat to the bottom right. Note the random make-up of the construction stones, mostly limestone blocks, Roman tile and flint.

The construction is made up of Roman tiles, odd bits of limestone and flint. A real jumble!