Allan's Mill was a

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as mill (grinding), milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in ...

located on both banks of the Speed River in

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as The Royal City, it is roughly east of Kitchener, Ontario, Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Ontario Highway 6, ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Part of the site is now listed under the

Ontario Heritage Act The ''Ontario Heritage Act'', (the ''Act'') first enacted on March 5, 1975, allows municipalities and the provincial government to designate individual properties and districts in the Canadian Province of Ontario, as being of cultural heritage ...

Allan's Mill

The first industrial establishment in Guelph, the original wooden mill was built in 1830 for the

Canada Company The Canada Company was a private British land development company that was established to aid in the colonization of a large part of Upper Canada. It was incorporated by royal charter on August 19, 1826, under the ( 6 Geo. 4. c. 75) of the B ...

by Horace Perry, who sited it on the west (right) bank of the Speed River. The mill was sold to William Allan in 1832, who operated it as a grist and flour mill; by 1836, the mill complex was expanded on both sides of the river to include a distillery, a brewery, and a

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

carding In Textile manufacturing, textile production, carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passi ...

house operated by William and his son David Allan. Around 1850, the original wooden structure was removed and replaced with one made of limestone, and a bridge was added across the river, connecting the two halves of the mill. Old reports state that the new grist mill building had cylindrical turrets, such as those found in Scotland. The distillery sold large quantities of whisky and other spirits. Around 1877, the Allan family sold the mill to David Spence of Brantford; it remained in operation as a flour mill until a series of fires gutted the building.

Later developments on the site

The site on the west bank of the river later became home to several industries, including the Flexible Conduit Company (later the Dalyte Electric Co.) which occupied the site between 1909 and 1929. In the 1960s, the site was home to a feed and seed business and a plastics firm, until the buildings were destroyed by fire in 1966. The ruins of the stone building are now a part of Guelph's Heritage Park. On the east bank of the river, the Arthur Street building which had previously housed the distillery became home to a variety of companies: it first housed the McCrae Woollen Company until 1900 when the A.R. Woodyatt (later Taylor-Forbes) foundry purchased the site. Taylor-Forbes occupied the site until its 1955 bankruptcy; the site was sold to the W. C. Wood Company and was then used to manufacture appliances until the business was shut down in 2010. After a period of brownfield restoration, construction began in 2014 on The Metalworks, a new condominium apartment complex on the site of the old W. C. Wood factory. In 2019, as part of the Metalworks development, the Spring Mill Distillery was opened on the site, occupying the same building originally built for the Allan Distillery nearly two centuries before.

References

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* * * {{coord, 43.5468, N, 80.2433, W, display=title Buildings and structures in Guelph History of Guelph Watermills in Canada Grinding mills in Canada Flour mills in Canada Industrial buildings in Ontario History of agriculture in Ontario 1830 establishments in Upper Canada