Cotehele Mill
A pleasant 10-15 minute walk from the quay alongside Morden stream leads to Cotehele Mill. As part of the Cotehele Estate run by the National Trust (NT), you’ll need a ticket to see the mill in action.
If your legs aren’t up to it, there’s a small shuttle bus that runs between the mill, the quay and the house. It’s a useful service, for which a small donation is respectfully asked for.
This working mill is in a picturesque setting and a worthwhile detour from the house and quay.
An overshot water wheel is fed by a leat which is controlled by a man made weir and sluice gate. This leat also feeds a modern hydroelectric turbine.
The mill is part tourist attraction and part business. The NT has restored the bakery that used to be here at the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century and uses the mill’s own flour, although not exclusively so.
Like many people, I find watching mills like this in action fascinating, and still marvel at how people all those years ago worked out how controlling water and crushing grain through a series of cogs and wheels could make bread.
The mill is not open during the winter months and for all the relevant info it’s worth taking a look at their website.
Originally posted 2017-11-18 11:23:07.
I know it is maybe not a big attraction touristwise but it’s lovely. I am loving Cotehel.
I did these these Cotehele posts in my early blogging days when I followed my old VT format with shorter posts. I doubt I’ll change them now, but if I was doing them again I would probably integrate them more.
You give a great picture of the place. Seriously.
Ah thank you Shey! You’re far too kind ⭐
Seriously, you do. I have always wanted to go to Cornwall. Now I am sitting here thinking… and here’s the places actually. Polperro and Cotehele look wonderful.
Polperro can get busy but Cotehele less so.
Quiet places have their own charm, don’t they? There’s alot of nice bits to Cotehele
There is, but it’s a bit out of the way. There used to be a great way of getting there. There are spasmodic boat trips from Plymouth’s Barbican that will take you to Calstock on the River Tamar. Then there was a ferry that would take you upstream to Cotehele. You could then catch the ferry back to Calstock and then take the branch line train back to Plymouth. I think some jobsworth at the NT made it difficult for the ferryman to operate so it scuppered any idea you may have had of creating your own ‘Round Robin’.
Oh there’s aye some twat that way.
And the National Trust seem to have been attracting their fair share recently.
I also find it fascinating to see how they used their one source of power (water) to turn a series of cogs and wheels to grind the flour.
We have our fair share of water that comes out of the sky in this part of the world, so they shouldn’t have run out of the main raw ingredient