A small, two-storey, stone-built mill, erected in the mid-1840s, that was used to prepare gorse for feeding to horses. From the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War, most Welsh farmers used horses to carry out the work of the farm. Because of this it was important to feed horses well, and gorse was an important part of their diet. It was specially grown on a large scale but had to be bruised or crushed to make it fit to eat. The gorse crushing machine, with heavy metal spikes fixed to the axle, was located on the ground floor and was driven directly off the wooden waterwheel. By about 1850, however, most such mills had been replaced by lighter and cheaper hand-operated or oil-powered machines.

The mill at Deheufryn Farm was donated to Museum of Welsh Life in 1954 (Acc. No. 54.476). The mill building was donated to the Museum in 1979 and was re-erected and opened to the public in 1983; the gorse mill was reinstated in 2001.

(information from the Museum of Welsh Life and from Melin, the Journal of the Welsh Mills Society, vol. 19 (2003): Gorse and Gorse Mills in Wales, Gerallt D. Nash; APPENDIX 2: list of confirmed gorse mill sites)

B.A.Malaws, RCAHMW, 04 August 2017.