Description and History of Site:-
The mill's history dates back to 1093 when it was owned by Robert de Lacy, Lord of Pontefract Castle. The weir was built in 1155. By the late 13th century the mill was a timber building with a thatched roof and it had an undershot waterwheel. By 1362 Henry de Lacy owned two watermills and a fulling mill at Castleford. It is recorded that in 1701 repairs to the mill included £24 for two pairs of stones and £7.5s.6d for a new waterwheel. In 1740 the timber buildings were replaced by a brick and stone structure.

In 1782 the mills on both sides of the River Aire were bought by the Aire & Calder Navigation Company from Thomas Bland for £7,000 and by 1816 there were two separate mills occupying the same building, one producing flour and the other, until the 1820s, grinding flint and bone for David Dunderdale's Castleford Pottery. In 1887 it was named Queen's Mill in honour of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and in 1892 it was the first building in Castleford to have electric lighting, generation being powered by the mill's waterwheel.

In 1896 it was owned by Harry Goodall & Co. who set up a company, Triticine Ltd, to market a fortified wheat product, “Triticine”, advertised as a cure for all ailments. Unfortunately this product, similar to “Ovaltine”, did not prove successful and following a major fire in 1897 which gutted most of the older parts of the building the company was wound up.

The mill remained empty from 1897 until 1921 when it was bought by Thomas Allinson & Co. to produce their famous flour “wi' nowt taken out”. At one time the mill was the largest stone grinding flour mill in the world with 20 pairs of stones. The waterwheel was decommissioned in 1970 and, after a number of mergers the then owners ADM Milling closed the mill in 2010. However, in 2013 it was bought by the Castleford Heritage Trust who, in August 2015, started producing stone-ground flour on a small scale, using wheat produced at Kellington, just 8 miles to the east. The Trust has converted the Mill into a community space and there is now (2018) an extensive calendar of events held there.

Further Reading and References:-
www.castlefordheritagetrust.org.uk

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Key Words :- corn flour mill

Address :- Aire Street, Castleford, West Yorkshire, WF10 1JL
Grid Ref :- SE 42915 25903
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.727768 , Long -1.351034
Local Authority :- Wakefield Council
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Site extant - Protected status unknown
Site Condition :- Site conserved and open to the public
Record Date :- 28 September 2016

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © John Suter