The Cabin

This ‘cabin’ was used by the mill man to sleep in on stormy nights.He would have been able to keep a watch on the sails and stop the wind from causing any damage. There would have been a small bed and a wood burning stove to keep him warm. With all the noise of the machinery it is likely he didn’t get very much sleep!

And now for a ghost story!

One wild stormy night of gales and pouring rain, death came to the Old Black Drainage Mill. Alone in the dark, Ned Bell the Millman, climbed to the top of the brick tower to set the sails. The wind roared and buffeted in from the North Sea. The mill sails whirled madly in the wind against the dark night sky.

Inside, the tall dark mill shuddered and shook.

The machinery clattered, clanked and groaned The wind screamed in the wooden top and threatened to rip it and the sails away. In that inferno of screaming winds and clattering machinery, high in the dark top of the mill, fifty feet above the ground, a wheel caught the coat of poor Ned Bell. It tossed him back and forth and up and down. The deafening noise stifled his cries for help that none would have heard for the nearest house was half a mile away.

The next morning the storm had passed and in the mill a grisly discovery was made! And forever after whilst the Black Mill stood, on dark stormy nights, people said you could hear the ghost of poor Ned Bell calling for help!

Scary!