Modern millpond.


A watermill is presumed to have existed at Bishopscourt farm for at least a century and a half on the basis of the presence of a 220m-long leat marked on the Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition mapping of 1869.


Water storage is provided by a millpond situated in the Bishop's Glen to the south-east, and centred at the grid reference provided. The millpond is impounded by a dam across the width of the valley. It covered an area of three-quarters of an acre in 1869.


A sluice at the northern end of the dam controls the flow of water down the leat, whilst a second sluice at the southern end of the dam governs the flow of water through the glen, which by at least the middle of the eighteenth century had been landscaped.


The mill presumably served latterly to process farm produce. Any predecessor on the site may have additionally processed grain collected as the bishop's tithe. A document recording a parochial perambulation in 1677 mentions the existence of a mill. It is noteworthy that the water supply for the mill is derived from an extensive catchment consisting of at least four watercourses.