Mill At Gun's Mills

Gun's Mills (alternatively Gunn's Mills) began as a site for corn and fulling mills, fuelled by the water power from a tributary of the neighbouring Westbury Brook. The complex is named after William Gunn, a wool fuller, who rented the site in the late 16th century. In the early 17th century, Sir John Winter (a.k.a. Wintour/Wynter), a local ironmaster established an armaments foundry at the site.}} By 1683 a blast furnace was operating at the site. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) suggests this structure was a re-build of the original furnace. By 1743 the building had been converted to a paper mill. This operated until the end of the 19th century, when the site was…

The Forest of Dean was a site for iron working from Roman times and by the 16th century had become an important industrial district, a “cradle of industry before the Industrial Revolution”. Gun's Mills has been described as the "best remaining furnace of the earliest phase of British blast-furnace practice", and as the "oldest surviving blast furnace, complete with its original lining and 'charging house' on top, that exists in Europe, if not in the world." The main mill is a Grade II* listed building. The furnace is a scheduled monument, and a house on the site is listed at Grade II.