The Mills of Exwick - a short history

It is thought that Exwick was the first site on the river Exe, and perhaps in Devon, to exploit water to drive a water wheel. The 1½ mile long leat that runs from Duryard Weir was cut through solid rock in places, and in other places 'dry stone ditching' was used to support the banks. In 1325 the manor of Exwick was part of the Cowick Barton priory and their records listed two mills at Exwick. Exwick Mill was the site of the priories mill of St Andrew's.

Exwick Mills - Higher, Middle and Lower (Old) Mill

There have been several mills on or around the Exwick Mills site through the ages - flour was milled in 1325 and there were three grist mills in 1600. There is a lease for the site from 1756 running to 1894 and records of a bankrupt sale in 1833 of the Higher or Old Manor Mill (Exwick Mill). The mill buildings were fortified by Fairfax in January 1646, during his siege of Exeter in the Civil War, so they must have been substantial buildings.

It should be noted that Exwick Mills had as many as three working wheels, sometimes referred to as Lower (Old), Middle and Higher (Old Manor) Mills; this causes confusion with the mills further down the leat, in the village of Exwick. 

The Lower or Old Mill and Middle Mill

The Lower or Old Mill was let by the Bullers to Gibbs, Banfill and Granger as a fulling mill in the 1785. The fields on the opposite side of the road are marked as rack fields in the 1839 tithe map. The fulling mill supplied the woollen factory of Banfill and Granger situated below the paper mill. The Lower or Old Mill continued fulling until about 1820 when Banfill and Shute was closed, and may have continued until 1825 when George Shute and Sons finally ceased production.

Here we come upon the problem of identifying the correct mill when in 1834, Exwick Lower Mill, was rebuilt as a flour mill, and up for sale by auction; of the three main mills in Exwick, the old fulling mill is the most probable site. The mill had three pairs of millstones and could produce between 800 and 1,000 bushels of flour, weekly. A bushel is just over 35 litres in volume. The mill was offered for sale in January 1843 as 'Close to the terminus, at Exeter, of the Great Western Railway' and again in 1849. John Manley who was the miller in the 1851 census, was found guilty of adultering his flour with alum in 1858 and fined £20. The next year he sold the mill and all his furniture and by 1861 he was living in Lancashire. 

In 1866, the Old Mill was demolished along with the 'middle mill'. By 1869 the remains of the three mills was offered for lease in what was described as a "...newly erected mill...substantial brick and slated structure with three floors. The machinery is driven by a powerful new iron-wheel of the most approved construction". It was within a half a mile of St David's Station, which rules out the paper and woollen mills which were much closer.

From time to time, in the early 19th-century, wheels at the Exwick Mills site ground manganese and bone along with flour.

The Higher Mill

In 1833 the Higher Mill was for sale from Tuckers, who were also selling their Fore Street bakehouse and the Lower Mill. By 1861, William Rice Mallett was shown in the census at the Exwick Flour Mill which he purchased from the Buller's in 1866, and rebuilt in the same year, the three mills - see above.

Technological innovation was entering milling at this time, and William Rice was keen to take advantage of the changes. New roller mill machinery was being introduced that was far more efficient than the old mill stones. In 1886, the mill was rebuilt, in red brick and new machinery installed, including a semolina purifier. What is believed to be the widest steel poncelet wheel in the country, by Taylor and Bodley of Exeter, was added in 1887, and production recommenced.

William Rice Mallett died in 1897 leaving the mill in the care of his son. The young Mallett was already 41 years old, with some influence, when as chairman of the Exeter and District Chamber of Commerce, he gave evidence to the Parliamentary Committee discussing the wheat stores of Great Britain. In 1898 he offered a prize for art students at the Technical College.

New innovations were introduced, and in 1911 the water wheel was replaced by water turbines and later, electric motors. In the First War, the mill worked around the clock to produce flour, often with a reduced workforce, as the men went to the front. In 1942, it was damaged by blast from a bomb dropped on the station.

In the 1950's the mill's main output was stone ground whole meal flour, and self raising flour for the bakery trade, but new industrial plants, that were far more efficient, left Exwick Mills behind and the final closure, and the end of flour milling in Exwick occurred in December 1958, when 30 employees were made redundant. The building continued to be used as a storage facility by a corn merchant. The final break with flour production happened when the mill was sold in 1982 for the sum of £53,000.

The new owner was Dick Pennell who started to restore the buildings and rent out space for rock bands to rehearse and for a charity that recycled tools for Africa. At the present time, the use of the mill is uncertain.

Banfill and Granger - the woollen mill

The leat that fed Exwick Mills, flowed next to St Andrew's Road through Exwick, and turned opposite the Village Inn to flow past Exe View cottages and under Station Road to join the Exe below St David's Station. The Lower Mill was behind the present site of St Andrews Church, just above Exe View cottages.

Antony Gibbs, a son of George Abraham Gibbs, a retired surgeon from Clyst St George, went into partnership, in 1785, with Edmund Granger and Samuel Banfill whom he had previously employed as a clerk, to run a woollen manufactory from Exwick.

A parcel of land including Exwick Manor House was purchased by George Abraham for his son. The Lower Mill (Old Mill) situated on the Exwick Mill site was leased from the Buller's as a fulling mill. In 1786, Antony Gibbs began to build a new mill and finishing shops, on the leat below the paper mill. He cleared 31 elm trees, and had a load of stone along with several thousand bricks delivered to the site. Dye houses were built, while a new mill wheel was installed to drive spinning machines and other machinery.

By 1787, it was obvious that Antony Gibbs had over extended himself, borrowing from Granger, Banfill, his father, and others. The banks refused him credit and he was declared bankrupt, to leave the partnership. His father, as a major investor, was also liable and in 1789, he was also bankrupted, for £22,000. Antony had travelled extensively in Spain obtaining orders for the mill, so it was decided that he would return to Madrid and act as the Banfill and Granger agent, with any earned commission going towards paying off his debts.

Banfill and Granger proceeded to expand the industrial complex, to process wool into cloth, using one of the wheels at Exwick Higher Mill for fulling the cloth, and their newly built mill, below the paper mill, for the rest of the processing. New dye and washing houses had been built next to the leat, some on the site of the present Exwick View cottages. Housing for the factory workers were constructed on Exwick Hill. Jenkins described the complex thus:

"In this hamlet Edmund Granger and Samuel Banfill, Esqrs. have established a large woollen manufactory, and erected spinning machines, workshops, dye-houses, tenter grounds, &c.; also dwelling-houses for the manufacturers, an establishment which has greatly increased the number of inhabitants; here is Exwick House, once the residence of the family of Oliver, from whom it came by marriage to William Williams, M. D. of Exeter; it was the residence of his widow for many years, whose heirs sold it, with the Barton, to the present proprietors of the manufactory. It is now the residence of Samuel Banfill, Esq. the directing partner of that extensive concern."

Edmund Granger retired in 1814, and the next year a new partnership of Banfill and Shute was formed. The main output was long ells for the East India Company who exported to China in exchange for tea. Russell's Wagons were used to transport the cloth to London for the East India Company ships lying in the East End docks. The factory also produced woollen shawls and cashmere.

The end of the wool trade

Exeter was a rich city through its export of serge, but by the end of the 18th Century, trade was being lost to Leeds and Norwich. This, along with the restrictions on exports, especially to Spain, due to the Napoleonic wars dealt a fatal blow to Exeter as a wool city. The China trade was also diminishing, as the Chinese preferred another cloth, and the downturn in trade affected Banfill and Shute's factory. On 20th March 1820, a sale notice for the factory and mill appeared in the Sherborne Mercury.

It is worth listing the details of the sale as it indicates how extensive the woollen factory in Exwick was. There were 6 acres of land, and a 3 storey mill - the ground floor had gear work from the water wheels running four shearing frames, each working 4 pairs of shears, a brushing and napping machine, a calendar and cylinder and two breakers.

The second and third floor had thirteen scribbling and carding machines, five billies, eight jennies and one breaker. There were also 20 jennies working in other buildings, a dye-house, a building containing two blue vats heated by five flues, two large copper furnaces heated by steam, two wool vats and a drying loft.

George Shute took on the factory in his own right, and Penny & Rawlinson, lace manufacturers leased part of the complex.

By 1824 the factory was for sale again, described as the property of George Shute, deceased, and occupied by Penny & Rawlinson, and George Shute & Sons. It would appear the factory was not sold as a going concern and the machinery for Shute's Mill was put up for sale by auction in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post of 25th May 1826. There was no success for on 20th March 1827, the concern was again out up for sale, along with the lace factory which was still leased by Penny and Rawlinson. Their lease was to expire in December 1829. This sale included 20 cottages for the workers.

In 1830, Banfill retired and moved out of Exwick Manor House, into the Hermitage which was up Exwick Hill. He died in 1843 at the age of 78.

The 1850 White's Directory mentions the Hitchcock, Maunder & Hitchcocks occupying the woollen mill, but this was not on the scale of 50 years earlier. In September 1862 a notice to let appeared in the Flying Post "Exwick Mills, Exeter... extensive range of mill property... for many years occupied by Messrs Maunder as a woollen factory and Messrs Harris as paper mills, and are now to be let in consequence of the recent destruction of the former by fire..." The advert went on "The late woollen mills are situate about fifty yards lower down the same stream, and command the same volume of water as the paper mill." Apart from the 1830 map, this is the only reference that confirms that the woollen mill was the lowest of three mills in Exwick - Higher Mill (Malletts), the paper mill (and Steam Laundry) and the Banfill and Granger mill. Only the Higher Mill survives, and no trace of the other two can now be found.

Exwick Lower Mill - the paper mill

The naming of the various mills in Exwick has caused much confusion with historians, but some careful teasing out of the evidence unearths the Exwick Lower Mill's (not to be confused with the Lower Mill of Banfield and Granger nor the Lower or Old Mill of Exwick Mill) existence as a paper mill at the beginning of the 19th century and earlier. It was situated opposite Exwick Hill, on the east side of St Andrews Road, and had been in existence for many years.

An insurance policy of 1805 for Thomas Pim mentions that the paper mill was formerly a fulling mill. A fire on December 4 1809, and investigated as arson, perpetrated by Mr Pim, was not proved. Pim resumed paper manufacturing, but was bankrupt in March 1824.

A succession of paper makers occupied the mill after Pim. It was rebuilt with first Charles Squire in occupation during 1824, William Henry Pim during 1826 and Francis Edward Smith in 1841. Exwick Paper Mill was referred to in an advert of April 1843, for the sale of paper making equipment and utensils, as well as rag, and was due to a distress warrant. By 1851, the mill was again producing paper for Mr John Dewdney Jun, and examples of its output were exhibited at the Great Exhibition. In 1858 there was a sale of Dewdney's furniture as he was leaving the district. Charles Harris who ran other paper mills, was the last paper maker at the Lower Mill, but production ceased when the lease ran out in 1862 and the mill was put up for sale along with the burnt out ruins of the Hitchcock, Maunder and Hitchcock mill noted above.

See side panel for the possible use of the paper mill in 1862.

The Steam Laundry

The Exwick Lower Mill was worked as a flour mill for many years after its was rebuilt, by Paignton based Mr J P Rossiter, but by 1893 the mill building had ceased milling and in September of the same year, opened as the County Steam Laundry, with Frederick Edgar as manager. The first advert said 'The County Steam Laundry, Exwick, Exeter is now open for the reception of every description of laundry.... first-class steam laundry worked on sanitary principles.... also an extensive Meadow for Open-Air drying'

In January 1897 business was expanding for they advertised 'wanted, Best Shirt Ironers, piecework, 1s 6d per dozen'. It is interesting to note, that before the laundry opened, there were several individuals listed as launderers in Exwick, and it may well have been these services that indicated a market for laundry services. An expanding middle class, as well as a hotel trade in the growing city of Exeter, and further afield in Exmouth and Dawlish, required laundry services, and Exwick was not the only suburb to provide such facilities.

Mr and Mrs Edgar were presented with a silver tea and coffee set when they left the laundry for the Grapes Inn, South Street in 1899. Charles Gracey was the manager before the First World War; he enlisted as a Major, was awarded the DSO, and was killed in October 1916.

A fire, on 2 December 1941, at the County Steam Laundry destroyed several thousand pounds worth of clothing, including officers' uniforms and workers' overalls, gutting the building. The laundry relocated into temporary premises behind Exwick House, before it was refurbished. Changing circumstances closed the County Laundry in 1980 and in December 1982, this very visible remnant of a past age was demolished. Exwick House was sold, and divided into flats in the same year.

Sources: I must thank Alan Mazonowicz for the use of his extensive notes on the history of Exwick. Other sources include West of the River by Hazel Harvey, Jenkin's Civil and Ecclesiastical History of the City of Exeter, Water Mills and other Water Powered Sites in Devon by Martin Bodman, leases and maps from the Devon Record Office, the Times, and of course, the Flying Post.