There was a water powered corn mill on the River Aire at the end of Fleet Lane in Oulton in medieval times. Two more mills, for whiting and flint, were added later, hence the name Fleet Mills.
In the 1940s, the Oulton vicar Geoffrey Hamish Mercer, read and paraphrased many old manuscripts for his handwritten Notes for a History of Oulton. The earliest reference he found came from 1425. It stated: “John Shercrofte holds the mills of Flete and the mill before the gate of the manor.” The second part of the sentence presumably refers to the manor house near Rothwell church.
Sixty years later, in 1485, according to an article on local history in the Leeds Mercury in July 1885, a letting was made to Thomas Elys (Ellis) for seven years of “all the water mills called Fletemylles within the Honour of Pontefract, with all the fisheries and water rights” at 20 marks and an improved rent of 15 shillings and four pence (15/4)”. In 1574 the mill was associated with a Richard Burton.
Some of the documents Mercer read also referred to a Milne Road, presumably an earlier name for Fleet Lane as milne was the Old English word for mill.
According to John Batty, in his History of Rothwell published in 1877, the name fleet is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word fletan. It meant swift running when referring to the rapidity of a stream or river. The original mill was located on the eastern edge of the old parish of Rothwell which historically was just under six miles wide.
It’s doubtful if there was a mill on the site before the Norman invasion in 1066 as the only known reference to a mill locally comes in the Domesday Book survey from 1086. It was done to identify areas of land to be taxed and mentions a mill in Rothwell manor, probably the one on the beck near Holy Trinity church that survived into the twentieth century.
There’s evidence that Fleet Mills were extensively rebuilt during the latter part of the 18th century and further improvements were made in the 19th century. From 1786 they came under the control of the Aire & Calder Navigation. A serious fire in 1924 destroyed much of the interior of the buildings and they were finally demolished in 1967.
Click on the pages in this section to read more about the mills’ history and the tenants and workers who operated them.
