Thwaite Mills - Virtual Tour Index
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Thwaite Mills nestles on an island between the River Aire and the Aire & Calder Navigation, 2 miles south of the city centre and was opened as a museum in 1990.

A mill has been on this site since at least 1641 when permission was given for a weir to be constructed across the river forming a millpond.
Taking advantage of a natural bend in the river, the original mills were for fulling, the first cloth process to use waterpower. By the early 19th century the dilapidated buildings housed four water wheels and equipment for fulling and logwood crushing. In the early 1820's the Aire & Calder Navigation Company, who owned the mills decided to demolish them and build anew. The new mills consisted of the mill building, the mill ownerÕs house, workshop, stables, two waterwheels and machinery for crushing logwood, grinding corn and oilseed milling.

The first tenants were the Joy's, a family business later to become Filtrate Oils Ltd. The Joy''s remained at the mills until 1845 and in that period supplied lighting and lubricating oils to many customers, possibly including George Stephenson and his 'Rocket'. Thwaite Mills continued as an oil mill after they left but between 1861 & 1872 a serious fire was followed by periods of disuse and neglect. In 1872 Thomas Horn, whose brother had established a stone grinding business in nearby Castleford and Oulton, successfully offered to refit the mills and take on tenancy for £100 per annum. He added machinery for crushing flint and china stone, for the local potteries and chalk for whiting. This was used in toothpaste, paint, tablets and other products.

With the final collapse of the Aire Valley potteries during the Great War, the flint machinery was laid to rest where it had laboured. Likewise when a new method of grinding chalk was installed, the old equipment was kept. Nothing was wasted, old household pumps were drummed into service for making putty, old barge timbers found a new lease of life as conveyor belts or as firewood for the kilns and used grease cans became air ducting. The Horns kept things as self-sufficient as possible, with a workshop that could do most repair jobs in the mill, land for arable and pasture farming and a row of cottages for the workforce.

One of the interesting facts about the mills is that despite being overshadowed by Skelton Grange Power Station for about forty years they were not connected to the National Grid until 1986. The Horns generated their own electricity!

Sadly the mills industrial fate was sealed one January night in 1975, during a particularly heavy flood the river breached the old weir and it collapsed; without the power of the waterwheels it was decided that this was a convenient point to call it a day and after fulfilling their outstanding orders T. Horn, Putty and Whiting Manufacturers of Thwaite Mills closed down.

This was only the beginning of the recent history of Thwaite Mills. Many people did not want to see this valuable resource go to waste and so formed the Thwaite Mills Society who, with the help of influential allies, was able to inaugurate a major building operation not unlike that of a hundred years previous. The weir was rebuilt in concrete and steel, the machinery and buildings were restored and the wheels were able to turn again.

On your visit to Thwaite Mills trained Guides will take you around on an informal tour of the mill and explain what it was like to live and work on this island community, where an old swing bridge was the only link with the outside world. ThereÕs so much to see and hear its well worth a visit.