Tracey Mill

Tracey Mill, in Honiton, is one of the few remaining working water mills in Devon. Thought to date from the 17th century, the mill with its attached miller’s house has been both home and workplace for a long series of millers down through the years.

In 1891 a new and improved high breast undershot wheel was made using iron castings produced by the Bodley Foundry in Exeter and fitted at Tracey Mill by the Michelburg Foundry from nearby Honiton.

The mill continued in production for over 300 years until around 1960. After extensive renovation in 2001, it is once again producing flour and power from one of the two sets of French Burr stones.

Trout Farm

Tracey Mill is fed by the River Otter, which rises in the Blackdown Hills in Somerset, progresses down an ever-widening and fertile valley before meeting the sea at the Devon coastal town of Budleigh Salterton. Such a mineral rich and natural water source provides a perfect, natural environment for trout to flourish. Tracey Mill, keen to retain its active agricultural heritage is now one of the South West’s best known trout producers. A number of ponds were dug around the mill leat in the 1970’s using water fed directly by the mill race from the River Otter.

These ponds were refurbished and extended in 1998 and now over a million gallons of fresh River Otter water passes through the ponds each day. With trout living in flowing water, stocking levels are deliberately kept low to produce healthy fish in a natural environment without the need for antibiotics or added oxygen and using only quality GM free fish food.