'Our mill's machinery won't work in the drought'

Gayle Mill volunteer Martin Stockdale said the summer holidays were normally the attraction's busiest time of year

A Victorian mill has seen reduced visitor numbers due to drought preventing its historic machinery from functioning.

The lack of water to power the attraction means visitors can no longer watch demonstrations of the workings of Gayle Mill, near Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Volunteer Martin Stockdale said seeing the mill running was a key pull factor for the former cotton mill, which was built in 1784.

"A lot of our visitors travel a long way because they want to see the machinery in action," he said.

A drought was officially declared in Yorkshire earlier this summer for the first time since 2022, as the area experiences one of the driest years on record.

The turbines at Gayle Mill are powered by the Gayle Beck, but have been stuck in place while water levels remain low.

While water normally "gushes" over the overflow, the mill said there was not currently enough flow to operate either of its turbines

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Gayle Mill said there was "just about enough water to fill the mill race" last week, with all stopcocks switched off.

Normally, water would be "gushing over the overflow even with the stopcocks open", it added.

With no further rain forecast, volunteers were not expecting to be able to operate either the generating turbine or the main turbine during the next week.

"We'll still be running tours as normal, but there will have to be explaining rather than demonstrating," the post added.

"We feel it's certainly impacted our footfall," Mr Stockdale said.

"Now it's still and silent, it's an empty building, it's a dead building to be honest.

"Normally it would be a hive of activity, there would be machinery working, there would be belts moving and slapping."

The situation has been "made clear" to potential visitors, which Mr Stockdale said has "clearly" dissuaded them.

Normally their busiest time, Mr Stockdale said the summer holidays had seen potential visitors finding other things to do that are not affected by the drought.

"Apologies in advance, there really isn't anything we can do about it," the mill added in its Facebook post.

"Even if there weren't a hosepipe ban, we'd need a lot more than a hosepipe to make a difference!"

The building was operational until 1988, ending its life as a sawmill.

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