North Tawton Woollen Mill

Short video of our visit to the North Tawton Woollen Mill, which dates back to 1750 and was established by John Fulford from Crediton, the Fulfords ran the business until 1842.
The Present mill was built in 1845 by Gilbert Vicary and later sold to a Halifax firm. It Closed down in 1930 when it was the last woollen mill operating in North Devon.
The 1888 Ordnance survey map shows a large amount of new development and the map of 1905 shows additional extensions. Since the closure of the mill the buildings have been used for the storage of wool until recently.
The building behind the Listed mill, which according to map evidence must have been built between 1888 and 1905, may be worthy of Listing as it appears to be a fairly unusual structure and new mill which appears to have been re-faced in locally made concrete blocks and render disguised to appear like concrete blocks sometime in the 20th century. There has been a building of approximately the same size as the existing building on the site since before 1846 and although there appears to be no evidence that this structure dates from that period, there may be the remnants of some of the earlier structure contained within the walls.

[@michellewalsh1970]

Fab video thank you. Aiming to visit this week.

[@fredflintstone1024]

Thanks for that ! Glad you enjoyed it, we did :)

[@fredflintstone1024]

Ha you found my calling card then, well spotted :)

[@VTOmanifan]

Interesting video Fred. Such a shame to see this falling into a state of disrepair. Even some replacement roofing sheets would help preserve what's left.

[@fredflintstone1024]

Hi Geoff, yes a great shame its in that state of repair, if it's historic then why aren't we looking after it, The powers that be are short of finances to save everything and the Government that could help out, squanders millions every day, and the common man is too busy paying the wages of these idiots in Parliament that are in it for themselves and out to rip off the Tax payer any which way they can it seems, rather than give money to preserve our history with well spent money.

[@VTOmanifan]

@@fredflintstone1024 Couldn't agree more Fred. Thanks

[@kitsharpexx197]

Me and my friend go here a lot i find it quite scary for some reason

[@fredflintstone1024]

Hi there Kit, probably is creepy around there by night, not so bad during daylight hours although there’s probably things that have happened there over the many years when it was in operation :)

[@kitsharpexx197]

@@fredflintstone1024 I have been there at night before and it is quite scary as you can’t see much but I also know there was a fire there not too long ago causing it to be even more damaged than it already is

[@rioplayer]

Hello, this is really great, is there a way I can message you, to ask a few things. Look forward to your reply

[@fredflintstone1024]

Thanks Rhiannon, it must have an amazing place back in the day, great shame it’s in the state it’s currently in, and that some of the buildings have been demolished :( There is a better example of a Woollen mill we looked at in Wellington in Somerset, we have done a few videos on that place, one part of it the Dye works actually had all the equipment intact, it was amazing to see :) You can ask me anything you want to know on here, i’ll keep a lookout for your messages

[@fredflintstone1024]

czcams.com/video/CQ1yA6YK9tI/video.html

[@rioplayer]

@@fredflintstone1024 thank you for your reply, I’m hoping to try and get up to this place to see it. Was this an easy place to get into. Is there much security if any around??

[@fredflintstone1024]

@@rioplayer no security there, just head for the village and the Arla Dairy is close by

[@rioplayer]

@@fredflintstone1024 okay brilliant. Thank you very much