Coldharbour Mill

Coldharbour Mill stands beside the River Culm near Uffculme in Devon, a working woollen textile mill that has turned fleece into cloth since 1797. The site began as a grist mill long before, with records from Saxon times and two mills listed in the Domesday Book. The Fox family bought the premises for eleven hundred guineas and used the steady water supply to power their looms. The mill is now a Grade II* listed building, recognised for its place in the story of British industry. A short drive from junction 27 of the M5, it sits close to the Somerset border on fifteen acres of meadow land. The mill’s history shows how wool shaped the region’s fortunes. At its height the Fox Brothers concern employed about five thousand workers across nine mills in three counties. The Tonedale site in Wellington covered ten acres and ran every stage from fleece to finished cloth, a rare ‘Twin Vertical Woollen Factory’. One of its grandest outposts was William Bliss & Sons in Chipping Norton, built after a fire in 1872 and furnished with a reading room, chapel and cottages. The family’s Quaker roots guided their business choices, from printing their own bank notes in 1787 to supporting local canals. Inside the mill visitors follow the old spinning and weaving rooms where the clatter of machinery still echoes. The waterwheel that once drove the belts now turns as a reminder of the power once harnessed from the Culm. Upstairs the carding engines and looms stand where generations of workers shaped serge and worsted. Outside, the riverside path offers views across the meadows that once supplied hay for the mill horses. The site keeps the story of Devon’s wool trade alive in every beam and belt.