The Mill at Berry Pomeroy

This painting shows a Victorian site of food production in Devon. The mill, painted by James Leakey, used the Gatcombe Brook near Totnes to power the waterwheel and grind corn into flour. The building has a distinctive Dutch gable and a steeply sloping porch. Both were still present when the mill was photographed in the 1950s.

James Leakey was a celebrated artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy but whose activity was mainly centred on Devon. He was a versatile painter, able to produce characterful portraits as well as many observations of rural life around Exeter.

You can buy a high-quality print of this work from Art UK.

Visual description: An oil painting of a water mill in a rural setting. The background features hilly woodland, with a cloudy blue sky visible in the top left corner and filtering through the tree canopy along the upper edge. The water wheel on the side of the water mill is turning. Two people are visible through the windows, and vines climb towards the Dutch gable roof. Outside the mill, two horses hitched to a cart stand beyond an open gate. A mounted figure rides away on a third horse, looking back on the mill. In the foreground, a handful of cattle and pigs graze.