WATERMILLS

Greet Mill was sited so as to take advantage of a small break of slope in the river bed. The Cole was ponded behind an earthen bank in or before 1261, and a mill continued in use there until about 1840. This was the manorial mill of Greet, grinding corn from the great fields. During the Civil War and later it also engaged in blade-edging.

In 1775 Greet Mill was advertised as a 'new-erected water corn mill with a regular supply of water, adjacent to the turnpike road'; an estate of 75 acres was attached.

The new building stood above a brick culvert in which one or more breast-shot wheels were set. Excess water fell over the weir and a side-race, the highway crossing on two humped bridges.

After steel-rolling in its last years, Greet Mill went out of use, the pool was drained, and the buildings were demolished and forgotten - until excavation of a new central channel for the Cole in 1913 disclosed the culvert.

Long-buried brickwork from the mill, with material from the old bridges, filled the former channels, and a wide balustraded bridge was built to take tramlines. With the demolition of the farm, even the name of Greet Mill Hill has gone out of use.

At the confluence of Cole and Tyseley Brook a mill is shown on Beighton's map of 1725. River works have destroyed and evidence hereabout, and no field-names survive as they do elsewhere to confirm its existence.

Downstream was Hay Mill, medieval property of Hay Mill. Was there a mill on the Spark at Danford ? Again, there is no evidence. Full details of all Cole mills are in my 'Watermills of the Cole and Blythe Valleys'.