Kilnsey – SD 973677
Kilnsey mill belonged to the Tennent family, of Chapel House, who were the Mineral Lords of Kilnsey and also joint Lords, with the Grassington Mineral Lord, of the Hawkswick Liberty. The mill was working by August 1729, when the Grassington Barmaster recorded the“carriage of 7 loads of coal to Kilnsey smelt mill at 4d per load”. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey 1/10560 sheet, published in 1851, still shows it as a smelt mill but smelting apparently stopped around 1827. Mining had not stopped, however, and parcels of ore from the Kilnsey Liberty were smelted at Grassington between 1831 and 1853, at Starbotton from 1852 to 1862, and at Kettlewell in 1872.
Further information and references can be found in:
- Gill, M.C. Yorkshire Smelting Mills Part 2, Northern Mine Research Society Memoirs 1993, British Mining No 48, pp 132-151
