St Dogmaels water mill
This corn mill is close to the ruins of St Dogmaels Abbey, founded c.1115. The mill may once have been part of the monastic complex. The earliest written record of it comes from the 1640s. The mill was upgraded in the 1820s. Around this time, or possibly the late 18th century, the building was extended upwards by the addition of a third storey.
The drawing of the mill, courtesy of the National Library of Wales, was made by Henry Clark in 1881.
Miller William Gwynne was a member of the St Dogmells School Board and involved in many other aspects of civic life. In 1904 he presided over a stormy meeting about providing lighting for the village, a scheme opposed by ratepayers who lived in the countryside outside the village limits. For many years he supplied wheat flour, oatmeal and barley meal to the Cardigan workhouse, on the outskirts of St Dogmaels.
The mill was worked by generations of the Gwynne family until 1926, when Evan Gwynne died. Members of the family continued to live in the building, but the machinery was inactive.
In 1977 Michael and Jane Hall bought the building from the estate of the late Phoebe Mary James, a descendant of the Gwynnes. They restored the mill’s machinery, along with the millpond and leat, and began milling grain in 1981. Today the mill, known as Y Felin (Welsh for “the mill”), is open to visitors. It produces flour and rolled oats which are sold locally.
The overshot waterwheel turns on an axle and hubs cast by Thomas and Company of Cardigan for this mill c.1860. The wheel’s iron shrouds were previously at a mill in St David’s.
Postcode: SA43 3DY View Location Map
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