saw mill. The works employed three local people between 1841 and 1861. J Chaplow and Sons used the larger building as a workshop after they bought it in 1895, and were described as "haulage contractors, threshing machine proprietors and furniture removers" in 1905. They maintained traction engines and other machinery in the mill building. THe water wheel remained in use, generating electricity until the 1940s, but was subsequently dismantled. Chaplows were still using the site in 2013 as a base for a tarmacking business. The smaller of the two mills was sold to Gawith, Hoggarth & Co around 1880, who used it to manufacture snuff. From at least 1973 it was the last water-powered snuff mill in Britain. Apart from the addition of an electric hammer mill in 1980 to increase production, the process continued almost unchanged until 1991, when the mill was sold and converted into a house. There were two gunpowder mills at Sedgwick, both producing gunpowder for the civilian market rather than for the military. Old Sedgwick Mill was the first of seven gunpowder mills in South Cumbria, and was started by John Wakefield. The site covered , and although it is believed to have opened in 1764, research by English Heritage in 2002 suggested that it was not built before 1768 and probably did not start producing gunpowder until 1770. The Wakefields worked hard to ensure that the Lancaster Canal extension to Kendal would be routed close to their works, and had a dedicated wharf on the canal at Sedgwick. The site was located on the east bank of the river, below the suspension footbridge, and a fall of in the river level provided the power for its mills. Wakefields moved to a new site at Gatebeck on the Peasey Beck in 1850, which had more fall, and where flows were augmented by compensation water from Killington Reservoir, which supplied the Lancaster Canal. The buildings beside the Kent were demolished between 1850 and 1854. In 1857, Walter Charles Strickland set up a new company which built the New Sedgwick Works on the west bank of the river. It covered some , and was fed from a weir originally built straight across the river, but subsequently reconstructed in a triangular shape. A long stone-lined channel ran through the woods to power water wheels and turbines at the main works. Strickland's company failed in 1864, but it was