Charming holiday cottage in the Dorset Countryside
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There has been a Mill on the site at Briantspuddle since before Doomsday and the Great Domesday Book of 1086 records that “There is a mill rendering 7s.6d.” - equivalent to 37 ½ P in today’s money! Almost 250 years elapse before it is recorded again in 1332 as the mill of Turberuylepudele. After another 260 years it is next mentioned in a fragile and indecipherable deed of 1592 where it is described as a “fullynge mylle in Bryantspuddle” (a Fulling Mill thickened cloth). The Mill holding included rights to pasture animals on the common, and to cut turf there for fuel; when the common was enclosed, two fields at Okers Wood and Smoaky bottom were allocated to the Mill. By 1635 it had reverted to a Water Grist Mill (grinding for flour). In 1717 a long lease was granted to Charles Meader, a millwright from Dorchester, and when he died 6 years later, his widow Elizabeth acquired a fresh lease for £10, which she afterwards sold on to the Hooper family of Hurst Farm. The Hoopers sublet the Mill for £9 a year to tenant millers until 1765, when William Hooper sold the remaining term of the lease for £40 to Mary Haskell, a widow from Affpuddle whose son-in–law Robert Pearce was running the Mill and bakery. Robert Pearce carved his Initials and the date, 1765, in the bressummer above the inglenook. For some reason he carved it twice!! This carving is still there for all to see. However, on the 1770 map, the schedule of which had first been drawn up in 1764, it is still listed under “Hooper of the Mill”. Robert Pearce and Mary (Nee Haskell) kept the Mill at Bryantspuddle until Bob died in 1808 and his wife Mary soon after. The Mill building stood at right angles to the house, both of them covered by a steep thatched roof. In 1818, the Mill was let as a joint property with Bryantspuddle Farm, and in 1838 the two properties appear on the Tithe Map as Mill Farm. It is uncertain when the mill ceased working. Although it has been converted to residential use and the leat from the River Piddle had been erased, the exterior of the original building with its thatched roof has changed little when compared with a photograph taken in 1897, at which time the mill was producing flour for the surrounding area. The French Burr stones, set in the garden path, and a wooden pulley, part of a sack hoist in the loft, are all that remain of the machinery. Mill Cottage was purchased in October 2002 from the estate of Stella Burden, who had died in October 2001 at a good age. Stella had lived in the cottage all her life, as had her mother before her. For the last part of her life Stella lived entirely on the ground floor with the result that the leaking Thatch roof caused considerable damage to the cob walls and timbers. The pictures taken at the time of purchase clearly show the dilapidated state of the Mill. During Stella’s lifetime, we are told that the cottage never flooded, even though it lies on the flood plain.  
The cottage is listed Grade II and Briantspuddle lies in the Purbeck conservation area. Consequently it took three years and two appeals to Bristol to obtain planning permission to restore and extend the buildings. Being empty for 4 years with leaking thatch did not concern the planners, but it certainly caused considerable damage in spite of tarpaulins placed over the thatch in an attempt to keep out the rain. |
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The restoration works, which included rebuilding collapsed cob walls with the original reconstituted cob, turning the cob stable into the kitchen, converting the old village bus garage into the studio bedroom and laying a waterproof self draining membrane with two automatic sump pumps under the entire floor of the cottage in case of future floods, took a full year and the cottage was ready for occupation on 16th July 2006. Eventually, even the conservation officer was pleased with the work and we hope that Mill Cottage can now survive another hundred years. 
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Tel: 01258 452746 enquiries@millcottagedorset.co.uk