The Corn Mill

Frequently the village mill was the gift of the Lord of the Manor to his tenants and he reserved the right to grind his own quota of flour.

In Henry III's time the Piggots held the Manor of Butley "of the Prince, in capite, by military service" and continued Lords till the death of Robert Piggot in Edward VI's reign. In Elizabeth's reign a moiety in the Manor was purchased by the Leghs, who eventually became proprietors of the whole Manor.

In the case of our mill, one William Piggot was the benefactor. In a deed dated 1270-1274, he gives to the Abbey of St. Werburgh "an acre of land, lying near the Bollin, in Prestbury, and leave to make a mill dam and quits claim to Abbey and Church of Prestbury all right which his ancestors had, or thought to have, in the same."

The destruction of the mill by fire in March, 1940, was a disaster to Prestbury and to antiquarians in general, but the intent of the deed lives on unimpaired, as does" the acre of land lying near the Bollin."

The walls of the old mill survived and during excavations after the fire, old gravestones used as flooring in the old mill were brought to light. The inscriptions were illegible and, as deeper digging revealed no graves, it is assumed that at some time or other the stones had either been bought or quietly removed from the adjacent Churchyard for secular use.

- from page 16 of a booklet, now out of print, produced in the second half of the twentieth century by the Prestbury Women’s Institute. But see the comment in the section on Mills and Brickworks of Tony Cartmell’s lecture. The site of the mill is now occupied by Abbey Mill (English Courtyard).