Building record MDR7572 - Heathy Lea Saw Mill, Baslow

Marple's mill was a corn mill in the 1880s but by 1900 had been converted to a sawmill. The altered buildings still remain as Heathylea pumping station for the north-east water board (now STWA). (1, 2) Baslow, Marple's Mill. The building still remains on the Heathy Lea Brook but has been used for purposes other than corn milling for over 100 years. Although it has been used as a saw mill for many years, it is presently being used as a pumping station for the Severn Trent Water Authority. No wheel or other items remain. (3) The area of Humberley (Heathy Lea Brook) is known as a site for lead smelting since at least the beginning of the 17th century. In 1628, for example, there is a lease of a 'smiltinge house or lead milne' near a stream called Humberley. The last known reference is in 1640, when an inventory records a pig of lead and 'colckes [cokes] at home and Humberley'. The Humberley brook has been searched without result above the confluence at SK 28807162; downstream a high-lead silt sample was recorded at SK 266723 and a piece of lead slag was found 50m west of the mill site at SK 27217213. A pump-house now stands on the foundations of the flour mill marked on the OS 1:2500 map of 1879 at this position and it is suggested that this is the site of the smelting mill. Water was fed along a head-race, now largely overgrown, from a weir at SK 27387213 where a modern shuttle is in place. An overflow from the head-race was set 5m east of the present building. A tail-race is culverted beneath the track west of the mill and joins the stream at SK 27147210. (4) Mill dam and leet still visible today (1997). (5)