Description and History of Site:-
Built on Aysgarth Falls in 1784 by eight partners to take advantage of the water power site. The four storey mill was for sale in 1811 and measured 57 feet by 27 feet and also had a counting house. The mill was still for sale in 1814 and then may have gone out of use for a few years.
In 1829 flax and tow spinning machinery was for sale at the mill and the same machinery was still for sale in 1834. By 1851 it was advertised as a corn mill although it still held some flax and cotton machinery.
The mill was destroyed by fire in 1852 but rebuilt at twice the size and five storeys high. Corn was ground on the lower floors, but the upper floors were used for spinning woollen yarn for the local hand-knitting industry.
Before 1937 it was powered by a 24ft diameter waterwheel. During an extensive refurbishment of the mill it was replaced by steel turbines with modern roller-milling machinery and a 3kW dynamo for lighting the premises. Flour, bran and wheatings produced at Yore Mill and local wheat used for making biscuit flour. Yorkshire Farmers Limited purchased premises in 1919. Said to have ground the best oatmeal in the Dales. Probably had a roller plant.
In 1974 Jane Hatcher noted: "Three storeys plus loft. Stone and slates. Typical flour mill cowls on roof. Goit taken off Upper Falls concrete lined channel that crosses under road. Watercourses still operative turbine still in position? Very large windows typical textile looking. Battlemented gable to west. Water very unusually except locally turns through 90 degrees to emerge from arched opening back into river. Inside beams supported in I section iron or steel columns. The mill was rebuilt after being burned down in 1851. Was a cotton mill. Horse drawn carriage museum in 1974."
In 2006 after a gap of 37 years, two hydraulic turbines in the mill were overhauled and began generating power again. The turbines, fitted by Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon Ltd in 1937 and in 1941, had not worked since 1969, when corn milling ended. They were overhauled by Gilkes. An electric motor was used to drive the mill in dry weather when the river was low.
In 2010 Yore Mill opened as a retail outlet. The founding partners at Yore Mill included William and John Birkbeck from Settle, who were later to have interests in several cotton, worsted and flax mills. Other partners were John Pratt, a gentleman and amateur jockey, Abraham Sutcliffe, an apothecary from Settle, Robert Dickinson, an engineer from Lancaster, John Harrison, a hosier from Hawes and Christopher Picard, a gentleman from Cowan Bridge. As none of them had any experience running a cotton mill they approached William Winstanley who ran a cotton mill at Walton-le-Dale near Preston to become the eighth partner. Local children who were to work in the mill went to Winstanley's mill to learn the necessary skills.

This venture was not successful and lost money. Partners left and in 1822 the Rev T D Whitaker wrote that the mill was 'ruined".

Before the First World War there was a proposal to build a large power station below the Middle Falls to provide hydroelectricity for Aysgarth, Carperby, Palmer Flatts, the Sanatorium and Flattlands, but the scheme foundered over a conflict of interests with the owners of Yore Mills, and lack of support from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who owned the land and rights.

There was a recollection in Aysgarth that direct current was generated at the Middle Falls, with storage batteries in Yore Mills for lighting the building and one lamp at the top of the church steps, but a rock fall at the Middle Falls "finished it off". A reference to "an old lead mine passage from the top of the Upper Falls to the Middle Falls which still runs and occasionally is blocked" (personal communication from Marion Kirby to Tom Hay, August 1999) may have some bearing on this "Middle Falls Scheme".

Further Reading and References:-
YAHS - Hatcher Card Index. Research funded by the Yorkshire Arts Association 1972.
Hatcher, J. The industrial architecture of Yorkshire. Phillimore, 1985.
Hay T. T., 2000, Hydroelectricity generation in the Yorkshire Dales. Cleveland Industrial Archaeologist Number 26 pp 35 - 53.
The power of current affairs, The Telegraph 9 Nov 2006
Ingle, G. Yorkshire cotton: the Yorkshire cotton industry, 1780-1835. Carnegie, 1997
Ingle, G. Yorkshire Dales textile mills: a history of all the textile mills in the Yorkshire Dales from 1784 to the present day. Royd Press, 2009.
Aspin, C. The water spinners. Helmshore Local History Society, 2003.

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Key Words :- mill water corn flour cotton wool turbine

Viewing the Site :- Can be viewed from the public road or footpath, parts of the site used for retail

Address :- Church Bank, Aysgarth, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 3SR
Grid Ref :- SE 01116 88605
Co-ordinates :- Lat 54.293065 , Long -1.984356
Local Authority :- North Yorkshire Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - North Riding
Site Status :- Listed - Grade II
Historic England List No - 1131199,
Site Condition :- Site conserved and open to the public
Site Dates :- Rebuilt 1851 -
Record Date :- 16 May 2015

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