This is the approximate location of a water corn mill mentioned in fourteenth century records for the lordship of Gower (1). It was one of two medieval corn mills in the Kilvey division of the lordship. It first appears, by name, in demesne financial accounts in 1367 when it was at farm for £3 6s 8d to a William Rynel. By 1400 it was the sole mill accounted for here, at farm to `divers tenants there? for £5 6s 8d.
The Parliamentary survey of 1650 refers to `Brane's Mill or Melin Vraen? valued at £6 per annum (2). The mill had gone by the time of the Tithe survey of 1844. The Ordnance Survey first-edition 25-inch sheet portrays a farm, Felin-fran at this location. A building close to Nant Bran (`Bran Brook?) is perhaps the former mill building though no obvious leat or pond is apparent in the surrounding field pattern. By the late nineteenth century Felin-fran Colliery had been established close by. The entire area has since been developed first with the construction of a railway and then the M4 motorway.

(1) D.K.Leighton, `The demesne watermills of the lordship of Gower in the fourteenth century: a reappraisal?, Melin 21 (2005), 9-36.
(2) B.S.Taylor, `The watermills of the Gower peninsula?, Melin 7 (1991), 2-18.

David Leighton, RCAHMW, 19 May 2016