History of the Old Mill at Down St. Mary.

The manor of Down St Mary belonged to Buckfast Abbey from before the Norman Conquest until the abbey was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII. The villeins of the parish would work the land and freemen would pay rent for holdings in the manor. In the 1400’s a system of leasehold tenure took over, but people paying rent to the manor still had obligations to the lord. The most important of these obligations was to do with the corn mill, now the Old Mill. It belonged to the lord of the manor and was an important source of income. All tenants had to use the lord’s mill for their corn – and to “purge and scour” the mill leat once a year. The leat, most of which can be seen today, is three quarters of a mile long. The oldest document found so far about the water mill is dated 1544, when Henry VIII sold the Manor of Downe to Sir John Fulford of Devon. One hundred years later there were two grist mills operating at the site, known as Devon Mills. The last corn millers were there for at least 50 years in the late 1800’s. Unfortunately, the water wheel stopped turning in the 1890’s, but cider, fruit juice, pulped fruit products and sawdust have all been produced at the mill since then. In 1986 a vineyard was planted and a number of award-winning white wines are currently produced.

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