Path Head Mill/Burn's Mill/Gibson's Mill

Path Head Mill/Burn's Mill/Gibson's Mill

HER Number
3423
District
Gateshead
Site Name
Path Head Mill/Burn's Mill/Gibson's Mill
Place
Blaydon Burn
Map Sheet
NZ16SE
Class
Industrial
Site Type: Broad
Food and Drink Industry Site
Site Type: Specific
Corn Mill
General Period
POST MEDIEVAL
Specific Period
Hanoverian 1714 to 1837
Form of Evidence
Ruined Building
Description
This small corn mill was powered by water fed along a mill race and had an overshot water wheel. Bourne says that there was a flour mill in 1775 called Hoplyh's Mill, which was later called Burn's Mill, on account of William Burn who occupied the adjoining farm, using the mill to grind his corn. By 1896 is was worked by Edward Gibson and was called Gibson's Mill. The remains are now fragmentary but parts of the leat and channel, as well as a low wall survive. A particularly noteworthy feature - a stone channel - is hidden in undergrowth beside the present pathway. This site probably contains the earliest built features of the Blaydon Burn valley. Little remains of the former settlement or farmstead of path Head, but the two storey threshing barn with adjacent waterwheel pit, which probably housed a breast wheel, is still visible.
Easting
417360
Northing
563200
Grid Reference
NZ417360563200
Sources
<< HER 3423 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey Map, c.1855, 6 inch scale, Durham, 2
Blaydon Burn, The Industrial Background
S.M. Linsley, 1975, Blaydon Burn - The Industrial Archaeology
T. Yellowley, 1986, Stella and Blaydon Burn
I. Ayris & S.M. Linsley, 1994, A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Tyne and Wear, p 57 and 62