John Knight created an estate at Simonsbath following his acquisition of the former Royal Forest in 1818-1820. The exact date of a sawmill on this site is unknown. A joiners shop is recorded in 1833 and may have been at Pound Cottages. There was also a separate carpenter’s workshop and yard in the village with a sawpit, two saw benches and a sawpit in the yard which may have been at the site of the current sawmill. Jones suggested it was built c 1855-65 as in poor repair according to a Fortescue Agent (in later 19th century). Current buildings are a north wing of carpenter’s shop and sawmill and a later south wing which was an agricultural building for threshing, grinding and chaffcutting, with a chaff house at a lower level under the south end. Map evidence suggests the south wing was built between 1888 – 1902. A later lean to housed the accumulator room, dynamo room and diesel engine room. A timber shed on the south wing housed a mortar mill. Power was originally by water wheel fed by a leat from Ashcombe Water, filling a millpond to the north. In1889 the water wheel was replaced by a turbine. The floods of 1952 caused the failure of the turbine leat and in 1954 a diesel engine was installed.
Age: of its time
Rarity: not rare but rarer as a survival
Distinctive Design: not especially distinctive but workings of interest
Historical Association: Part of Knight and Fortescue Estate – associated with named figures / workers
Evidential Value: Evidence for development of technology
Social Communal Value: valued as public resource
Group Value: High as part of Simonsbath Estate village
Collective Value: Limited