The Upton Mill

The old mill is one of the landmarks of Upton. While inside it is equipped with the most up-to-date machinery, outside stands the old windmill tower which was built in 1775. To-day it has neither cap nor sails, having lost the latter in the early 1920s. It has not been used,as a bakehouse since the new bakery was built in 1929.

Formerly the mill ground corn with the use of the sails, and this was used to bake bread in its ovens. To-day the old mill is used as a storehouse, though up to January, 1951, corn was ground into rolled oats, etc., the millstones being driven by electricity.

In 1904, a resident tells us, villagers used to bring their dough ready to be baked into 8-lb. Loaves in the mill oven. To-day very much smaller loaves are baked in the modern electrically driven ovens.

In 1839 a Mr. Wm;. Carter occupied the mill buildings, originally three old cottages and the mill tower. It was the Deans who, through marriage with the Carters, came into possession of the mill and who built it up into a flourishing bakery for Country Maid bread which serves the whole of North Wales and the North Western Counties, and who also opened amodern bakery at Cardiff. In 1938 it was amalgamated with the Allied Bakeries. Mr. Dean, grandson of the
originator, retired in September, 1950, and now the business is entirely wholesale.

The Sandpits.

There are two in the village. The old sandpit is situated off Upton Lane, formerly Sandpit Lane. The first record we have found of it is in the old Book where Thomas Ithell was paid £1. 0.0. for sand for road repairs in 1829. The family worked the sandpit for generations until it was closed in 1930s. The land was sold early this year and now the sandpit has been re-opened by Viggor Estates Ltd. The second sandpit, (69) situated off Heath Lane, Upton, was developed about twenty years ago. While digging out foxes the sand was discovered and eventually bored. It supplies sand for building purposes.

Brickyard

Formerly a brickyard extended from what is now Marina Drive to land at the back of Heath Road, now a sandpit. It was owned and worked by the Vernons of Chester. In a plan of the first Upton schools, 1843, a road marked "to the Brickyard" runs along the north side of the proposed school, where now is the road to the sandpit. Bricks were made here for the building of Upton Lawn and other houses in the neighbourhood, a nearby pit providing the clay for the bricks. (70)