Folly Mill

The ruins of Folly mill. Photo by Gary Tacagni.

Tucked away in a valley at Allgreave where the Tor brook meanders, can be found the ruins of a paper mill with a strange story attached to it. A man called Abraham Day decided to build a mill in probably one of the most inaccessible places you could wish to find. It would have been about 1790 when he built the mill in a beautiful wooded gorge at the foot of a rock face called Gibbons Cliff.

The rock face known as Gibbons Cliff, if you look carefully you can see the profile of a monkey in it, hence the name.  Photo by Gary Tacagni.

The Tor brook would have provided power for the mill, on the opposite side of the brook is Allgreave wood and on the mill side is Gibbons Cliff wood. According to tradition the first mill that Abraham built here was washed away during a flood, this also happened again after he had gone to the trouble of rebuilding. When he announced that he was going to rebuild it a third time his long suffering wife declared that she would go to bed and stay there, this she did until she eventually died there aged 76, probably from bedsores (lol).

Another view of the remains of the mill. Photo by Gary Tacagni.

One of the reasons that it was called a folly was due to the fact it was so inaccessible, the horse and carts which were used to deliver materials and transport the finished products out of the gorge would have found it very difficult.

A view from the remains of the road looking down into the gorge where the Tor brook flows, horse and carts would have found it difficult to negotiate. Photo by Gary Tacagni.

Over the years there have been numerous sightings of the ghost of Abraham Day hard at work rebuilding his mill, an old man with a stubbly beard dressed in leather trousers and a grey vest. There have been other unusual sightings in this area of a large cat like animal which has been seen, along with strange footprints found near to the mill.

Does Abraham Day’s ghost still work amongst these ruins? Photo by Gary Tacagni.