As an 18th Century watermill goes up for sale in North Yorkshire, Ruth Addicott talks to the owner who turned it into a luxury home with no energy bills

THE chance to live in an 18th Century watermill on the River Ure doesn’t come around often. Add to that a luxury family home with no energy bills and you have Tanfield Mill, which has just gone on the market for £1.25m. Current owner Stephen Young spent 20 years converting the watermill, which not only produces enough energy to power the five-bedroom home and nearby houses, but a substantial side income from selling back the surplus to the National Grid.

A retired electrical engineer, Stephen has always had an interest in renewable energy and had been looking for a watermill for years. From Sunderland originally, he had moved to the US and came across the property when he was in the UK on business. Situated on the edge of the picturesque village of West Tanfield, six miles north of Ripon, the estate dates back to Norman times and once belonged to Lord Burghley, principal advisor to Elizabeth I, and the monks at Jervaulx Abbey.

It was only the second time it had gone on the market and was derelict apart from the mill, a pig barn and concrete silo, but Stephen couldn’t resist and bought it for £350,000, without telling his wife. It has taken 20 years and a “six-figure sum”, but with the help of a local stonemason, joiner and labourer, the restoration is now complete. “We took our time, I wanted to be part of every decision,” he says. “I’m a big fan of industrial buildings and their relevance to the social fabric of the area. They were such important places.”

After converting the pig barn into a beautiful home for his parents, he turned his attention to Tanfield Mill and built three eco homes, including a luxury five-bedroom house. It took 115 tonnes of sand, 30 tonnes of concrete and 16,000 roof slates, but the original stonework from 1790 is still in place and the fixtures and fittings feature the mill’s old machinery, including the cast iron posts on the kitchen island and black steel staircase with four-inch oak treads. Keen to keep the work local, Stephen hired a local ironmonger to build the staircase, whose grandfather used to change the bearings on the old turbine.

After replacing the sluice gates and pulling down the 60ft concrete silo, which had to be “eaten” by a hydraulic nibbler brought in by police escort, he embarked on the mill races, concreting the floor and lining them with 5,000 tonnes of local limestone. It took two years to complete, including the construction of two bridges. He then had to figure out a way of inspecting the turbine, 20ft underground, beneath the main building and weighing five tonnes. “We had a huge crane and it had to be slung underneath an arch. There were a lot of complicated lifts to get it up and out,” he says. “It was one of the most challenging things of my life.”

Stephen sent the turbine back to the manufacturers, Gilbert Gilkes & Gordon, in Kendal, who, as luck would have it, still had the original drawings from 1893 and spent the next two years restoring it. It came back shiny and new. “Designed to last another 100 years,” he says.

Once the turbine was back in place, Stephen went to power it up, but the vibration was so strong the cobbles outside started shaking, so he had to do a re-design and fit a new gearbox, before eventually connecting to the grid. At last, the mill was raring to go, but when he applied for a licence from the Environment Agency, he was faced with another hurdle as the agency raised concerns that salmon would get caught in the turbine. Determined not to be defeated, Stephen spent a further £25,000 monitoring the 500m mill race, proving the fish were fine, but the project stalled for three years, eventually prompting him to give up on his dream altogether and put the mill on the market. He’d started looking for a watermill in France when he was finally granted a licence in 2007.

“I’ve had job satisfaction in the past, but the first time I powered up a light bulb from the energy I produced was the best job satisfaction I have ever had,” he says. The abstraction licence from the EA has recently been renewed and is due to be re-issued next year. “The heating system is very sophisticated,” he says. “We have thermostats outside which send a signal to the boiler to produce more heat if the temperature is dropping, so it doesn’t take long to heat up the house.”

Aside from the potential to power 40 other homes, one of the things Stephen loves most is the wildlife – herons, dippers, kingfishers, otters, salmon and eels, to name a few. He also installed 40 nesting boxes, which are occupied by starlings, swifts and swallows every year.

Stephen hopes the new owner will be as much in tune with the wildlife and river as the workings of the mill, which requires a short inspection every morning – the bearings need to be lubricated and the mill race needs to be drained once a week.

The building is built on bedrock and he says flooding is not an issue. “A small river flows under the building to support the hydro system and the building has not flooded or moved for the previous 500 years or so, but it still needs to be watched,” he says. “It brings a new focus when you’re responsible for your own electricity. I’ve got this muted throb of a heartbeat that sits inside the building when the turbines are running and I know that my energy is being produced from a sustainable source.”

Although Stephen had planned to retire at Tanfield with his wife, Catherine, they recently became grandparents and now want to be nearer their family in New York. “As always, life makes decisions for you,” he says. “We’ve loved that place and had many brilliant family reunions there, but people are more important than buildings now.”

Tanfield Mill, West Tanfield, Ripon, North Yorkshire is on the market for £1.25m. Visit buchananmitchell.com