The date from which Mill Engine has been worked is unknown but c1833 it was known as Old Mill Engine Colliery and was drained by a steam engine.  The pits were down 38 yards to the Lowery coal which varied in thickness between 20 inches and 2 ft. 3 in.  There were two shafts, one the pumping shaft with the steam engine whilst the other was worked by a horse gin.  The coal was worked using the pillar and stall method and all small coal was left underground.  The main outlet for the coal was Bishops Wood on the River Wye close to Lydbrook.  It was transported there on the Severn & Wye tramroad and was then either sent on to Hereford by river or used in the ironworks at Bishops Wood.  At some time prior to the 1841 Awards Old Mill Engine was surrendered to the Crown.
New Mill Engine was galed in February 1846 to a John Bannister on the site of the abandoned Old Mill Engine Colliery.  It is likely that the ownership had passed, at least in part, to Cornelius Brain in the 1850s, certainly at Midsummer 1861 some arrears of rent stood against Thomas and Cornelius Brain in the Gavellerís records.  By 1873 the colliery was being leased to the Wye Colliery Co.  They were the lessees of Speculation Colliery and used the New Mill Engine for pumping purposes.
In December 1875 they ceased pumping, both at Speculation and at the New Mill pumping engine, known locally as ëOld Bobsí.  Soon afterwards the workings of the Trafalgar Colliery were flooded which led to a law suit for damages against the Wye Colliery Co. with the Trafalgar Co. contending that the cessation of pumping was responsible.
In April 1883 the Crown informed the Wye Colliery Co. that the time allowed for them to open the colliery was about to expire.  Pumping was undoubtedly still being carried out on the gale but no coal was being won from it.  Later in the same year the Wye Colliery Co. was dissolved when one of the partners, Richard Thomas, went into liquidation.  At the end of 1883 the gale was in the hands of the Trafalgar Colliery Co., which was owned by the Brain family, and in 1888 they sold it to the owners of Speech House Hill Colliery.
The pumping engine was supplied with coal from Speculation Colliery and until 1874 these were brought over the Severn & Wye tramroad but with the proposed abandonment of the line in that year, the railway having superceeded it, a short siding was laid in off the Wimberry branch.
MILLWAY MOORWOOD LEVEL

1841  Edmund John Scott, of St. Mildredís Court, Poultry, in the City of London, gentleman, (as assignee of a lease for a term of 1,000 years from 29 July 1816, granted by Aaron Hale, a Free Miner) to Lydbrook Deep Level; and (as assignee of a lease for a term of 200 years from 1 August 1817, granted by James Cowmeadow, o Free Miner,) to Millway Moorwood Level.

Lydbrook Deep Level Colliery, including also Millway Moorwood Level.

[Surrendered]

See also Lydbrook Colliery above