Water mill — horizontal-wheeled in Raystown

Two curving NW-SE headraces of Phase 2-3 that altered their direction to SW-NE led to Southern mill 3 and this Southern mill 4, but because of the large headrace/millpond created for Southern mill 5 in the same area it is not possible to say which millrace fed which mill. However, one led to the base-beam in two portions of a wooden sluice-gate that had mortices for vertical planks on its upper surface. The gate, flanked by substantial post-holes, led directly to the metaled base of the undercroft. The base-timbers surviving at SW (L 2.6m) and NW (L 1.8m) were placed on dwarf walls which survived on all sides except the NE. The stone tumble in the fill suggests that the undercroft may have been stone-lined. A sample from one of the timbers, which might have been re-used, yielded a C14 date of 653-730 cal. AD. This mill was severely truncated by Southern mill 5, which was positioned just to the NE of this mill. (Seaver 2009, vol. 1, 74-5) See the attached illustrations from Seaver (2009, vol. 2) _1 Phase 3 (fig. 23) _2 Plan of Southern mill 4 (fig. 80) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 20 December 2021