Watermill and associated water management.


It is thought that two grain mills, rented by William Hubart 'near Castletown' and recorded in the 1511 Manorial Roll, refer to the Golden Meadow site. The existing mill buildings are more modern, and a newspaper report of 1816 would seem to confirm that they had at that time been recently constructed.


The Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping of 1868 shows the complex as a 'water mill (corn)'.


The two main mill buildings are arranged in a row, with the waterwheels arranged on adjacent gables. The tail race is culverted beneath the yard, before re-emerging and continuing towards Castletown, where it flows into the harbour, 500m downstream. At one time it is said to have provided power to a watermill within Castle Rushen, although the arrangements for this are obscure (the castle mill is also said to have been tidal).


The more westerly of the two mills was used for threshing, and all its equipment has now been removed. The larger, easterly, mill, arranged over four floors and a roof-space, served as the cornmill, and still contains its equipment, although power was latterly provided by diesel for demonstration purposes. Milling ceased in 1981. A 19th century extension on the east gable housed a drying kiln.


The mills were owned by the Moore family for c.300 years, and during their tenure the site was additionally used for scutching and fulling, and for grinding snuff and powders. The building which until the 1970s stood at the south-easterly corner of the site was at one time part of the rope-walk that extended onto the Qualtrough's Yard site at the head of Castletown harbour.


Water power is derived from a millpond immediately to the north of the mill complex, which is fed by a leat extending nearly 600m upstream to a meander in the Silver Burn, where a substantial weir and sluice forms the draw-off.


Most of the buildings on the site have been converted and are now in use as holiday accommodation.