{"id":812569,"date":"2026-03-08T16:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T16:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/812569\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T16:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T16:23:12","slug":"historic-water-mill-sold-to-property-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/812569\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic water mill sold to property developer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Thwaites-Watermill-c-Leeds-Museums-and-Galleries-copy.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Thwaite Mill at Stourton has been sold to what the BBC described as an \u201cIlkley-based property developer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The mill which includes six buildings on a 19 acre site and is Grade II listed, was owned by the Canal &amp; River Trust and leased to Leeds City Council who operated the fully working water mill as a museum. It closed in 2024 due to the council\u2019s funding crisis and the owners decided to sell the site.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Leeds Civic Trust said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cWe are keen to speak to the purchasers of the building to understand their intentions and work with them to see the building back in use.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a listed building and is a unique part of the city\u2019s industrial history. The building needs to have a viable and practical use but we are keen to ensure that whatever is done is sympathetic to the history and heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The mill\u2019s history goes back to at least 1774 and was a working mill until 1975 grinding chalk to make putty. Local historian Ken Burton wrote two articles about the mill <a href=\"https:\/\/southleedslife.com\/local-history-thwaite-watermill-in-stourton-part-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/southleedslife.com\/local-history-thwaite-watermill-part-two\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Photo: \u00a9 Leeds Museums &amp; Galleries<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>While you\u2019re here, can we ask a favour?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">South Leeds Life is published by a not-for-profit social enterprise. We keep our costs as low as possible but we\u2019ve been hit by increases in the print costs for our monthly newspaper which have doubled in the last two years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Could you help support local community news by making a one off donation, or even better taking out a supporters subscription?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Donate here, or sign up for a subscription at <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/SLLsubscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><strong>bit.ly\/SLLsubscribe<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\tPost navigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thwaite Mill at Stourton has been sold to what the BBC described as an \u201cIlkley-based property developer.\u201d The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,53619,393,4884,1860,141131,234524,16,15],"class_list":["post-812569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-leeds","tag-britain","tag-canal-and-river-trust","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-leeds","tag-leeds-civic-trust","tag-thwaite-mill","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}