Thwaite Mills sold: historic Leeds watermill to reopen as museum, pub and café

Grade II listed site at Stourton, closed since 2024, begins a 12-month community restoration and its new owners are appealing for millwrights, engineers and anyone who knows how the machinery works to come forward.

Thwaite Mills, one of the best-preserved working watermills in Britain, has been taken over by four new owners who will restore it and reopen it as a working museum with a canal-side pub, a cafe and a beer garden.

Will Habergham, Terry George, Michael Rothwell and Kirk Allen have taken ownership of the Grade II listed site at Stourton, Leeds, and will begin a full restoration this week, more than two years after the mill closed to the public in April 2024. The 19-acre site sits on its own island between the River Aire and the Aire & Calder Navigation, ten minutes from Leeds city centre.

The work is expected to take around 12 months and will be carried out alongside volunteers from Friends of Thwaite Mills, the supporters’ group the new owners are relaunching as part of the project. No reopening date has been set.

The owners are putting out an open call for help. They are looking for millwrights, engineers, joiners, stonemasons, archivists, and former staff and volunteers — anyone who knows how the mill’s machinery, water wheels and buildings work — to come forward and help get the site running again.

“There will be people out there who know this mill better than we do, people who worked here, volunteered here, or just understand how a place like this goes back together,” said Terry George. “We want to hear from them. If you’ve got the knowledge, the skills or just the enthusiasm, come and find us. This isn’t a job for four blokes with a set of keys. We want to see it working again, and we want it to be a thing of beauty.”

Early plans include reopening the mill as a working museum, with the mill owner’s cottage becoming a traditional canal-side pub and the old ticket office reopening as a cafe. With 19 acres to work with, the owners plan a large beer garden running down to the water and fully landscaped grounds, free for walkers, runners and dog walkers to use. A programme of free family events and seasonal community days is planned, and the owners are exploring the return of the craft fairs and car boot sales the site was once known for. Longer term, they hope to add weddings and small music events.

“Thwaite Mills was saved by its community once before, and it’ll be brought back by its community now,” said Will Habergham, director of Thwaite Mills. “We’re not going to disappear for a year and come back with a ribbon to cut. We want people watching it happen, turning up, and telling us what they want this place to be.”

“The owner’s cottage plans are for a proper traditional canal-side pub, and the old ticket office will be the cafe,” he added. “There’s so much land here that the beer garden can be huge. Nineteen acres, on its own island, minutes from the city centre. It’s been bought for the community of Leeds, and that’s who it’s for.”

Built between 1823 and 1825, Thwaite Mills worked first as a flax mill and later produced whiting and paint, operating commercially until 1975, when a broken weir threatened its future. Local volunteers stepped in to save it the following year, and it opened as a museum in 1990, welcoming visitors until it closed in April 2024.

The relaunched Friends of Thwaite Mills is open to anyone, including former members of the original Thwaite Mills Society. Members will receive regular updates, be invited to volunteer days and have a direct hand in shaping the mill’s next chapter. The restoration will be documented as it happens through a social media diary rather than held back for a single announcement.

Members of the public can find out more, sign up as a Friend of Thwaite Mills, offer skills or knowledge and
follow the restoration diary at www.thwaitemills.com and on social media at @thwaitemills.