This fascinating and fully-working Cornmill originally stood at Barton, near Cressy, about thirty-eight miles from Launceston.

It was built by Andrew Gatenby and his four sons in 1825, soon after they arrived in Tasmania as settlers from England. It was equipped with grindstones and machinery brought out by Gatenby and the Berwick in 1823 along with a wheelwright and millwright and was constructed in less than twelve months including a two mile mill-race-still in existence to this day-and a mill pond to act as a reservoir.

Today's Cornmill is a replica of the 1825 mill using much of Gatenby's machinery and including the two original pairs of French Burr grindstones. It has been rebuilt as faithfully as possible from the surviving scraps of information and sketches, and the remaining ruins at Barton. It was typical of English watermills in every way and the machinery was practically identical with that used for grinding corn for several hundred years.

When Gatenby arrived on the banks of the Penny Royal Creek in 1823, he used exceptional foresight in positioning the first Cornmill on the escarpment near the crossroads at what is now Barton, for this proved to be an ideal position.

The excavation of the mill-race with the help of just one convict labourer in thirteen months in addition to all the other work clearing land, establishing themselves and building the Cornmill was a monumental task in itself, as can be seen to this day if the reader traces its course back from the mill to the junction with the Isis River two miles upstream.

As water was very scarce, especially in the dry summers of 1823 and 1824, Gatenby banked up a reservoir to store water-as fair quantities were needed to turn the wheel fast enough to effectively grind the corn. This mill-pond is still in existence today beside the foundations of the original mill and it fills with water every winter. Later, a much bigger reservoir was constructed for the larger 1840 stone Watermill, and this was only levelled in recent times by Mr. Headlam senior, to improve the nearby pastures.

For years after the mills ceased to grind corn, local children would play on the waterwheels by opening the sluices and running inside the wheels on the lining or "sole&, a very dangerous game but full of thrills! However, by 1910 the wheels had deteriorated so badly that they had collapsed on the bearings and never turned again until 1972 and 1976.

It is not known yet exactly when the mills stopped working but it is thought that the 1825 mill stopped in the 1840s and the Penny Royal between 1885-1895, its short life being caused by the building being situated on a low-lying plain which, due to frequent flooding, caused the support timbers of the machinery to rot and so jam up the finely-set cog wheels.

Roger Smith, July 1978.