Welsh Journals

The Rediscovery of Higher Mill, Llanrhidian by Bryan S. Taylor The physical conditions at Llanrhidian village as a site for mill construction are ideal as it possesses a constant and vigorous water supply, graphically described in Walter Davies' Agricultural Survey of 1815: near the church of Llanrhidian in Gower a stream of water gushes with great impetuosity out of the limestone rock and turns two mills immediately beneath. The early mill-builders took advantage of this excellent source of power. Who they were it is impossible to say but the settlement here, at this reliable spring, must go back well beyond the Conquest. It is, however, possible to commence a brief historical sketch of Higher Mill in the fourteenth century, with a valuable piece of documentary evidence that gives a hint of its existence in 1375. The Lordship was at that time held by Thomas de Bellocampo (Beauchamp), Earl of Warwick, and he granted a lease, dated 5th May 1375 to: Muerec ap Philip and his male heirs of the moity of a site of a water mill at Lanridyan, at the nether mulne place It may then be assumed that given the presence of a 'nether', or lower, mill, there would have also been an upper, or higher, mill at that time. In 1465 Phillip Mansell forfeited properties in the parish and these included three corn mills and a pandy (a fulling mill) and it is possible that Higher Mill was one of these. Again there is mention of both mills at Llanrhidian in the Penrice and Margam Manuscripts, dated c.1511: the ij mylles of Lanrydian 4 The next piece of evidence is a splendid document describing a marriage settlement of 1640 between Robert Williams and Anne Jones: moite and one half part of a water grist mill called the Higher Mill with appert. seituat lyeinge and beinge in Llanrydian in the hands and possession of the said John Williams.