KEY’S MILL
Webb’s Mill was a drainage mill situated along the Sixteen Foot Bank between the Wheatsheaf Drove and Bedlam Bridge.
It was a typical marsh mill used for draining the land. Mr. Key went to live by the mill about 1875. Mr. Key lived in the house and looked after the mill and the men who worked on the drain, in the days when the sails drove paddles which churned water from the land. It drove large wooden scoop wheels’ like padalo wheels, in a close fitting casing which raised the water a height equal to about two fifths of their diameter (Plate 13). The sails were sixty two feet long and the paddies fifteen feet long. ‘In 1916’ says Mr. Sparron, ‘a gale tore off one of the sails and hurled it right across the river’. [1]
In Kelly’s Directory of 1892, a Joseph Webb, miller, is listed. [1]
I can find no records of the corn mill at Poulters Drove, except that it was finally demolished about 1952. [1]
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