Most old mills were abandoned when their machinery wore out or the economics turned against them. This one kept going, adapting as it went, which is part of what makes it worth attention.

The mill is a substantial structure, five bays wide and double gable-ended, rising to five storeys with a wheel pit cut into the north-east elevation. Its working history involved at least two significant changes of power source. The original arrangement used a breastshot waterwheel, a type where the water strikes the wheel roughly at axle height, giving moderate efficiency from a modest head of water. That was eventually replaced by a much larger overshot wheel, twenty-four feet in diameter, where water is delivered from above and gravity does more of the work. Then, in the early twentieth century, the wheel itself was retired in favour of a turbine, which converted the same water flow into rotary power more efficiently and with less mechanical bulk. The mill race, which channelled water from the river to the west, fed all three arrangements in turn. On the first floor, a pulley system drove three pairs of millstones, the standard grinding apparatus for cereal crops. Higher up, on the fourth floor, positioned above what served as living quarters, the remains of a brick grain-drying kiln survive. Kilns of this kind were used to dry harvested grain before milling, reducing moisture content so the millstones could grind more cleanly and the flour would keep longer. Finding one still partially intact at this height, built into a working mill rather than as a separate structure, is relatively uncommon.