Higher Mill was constructed in 1789 and Whitaker’s Mill in the 1820s by the Turner family, textile manufacturers from the Blackburn area. While Higher Mill has always been a wool fulling mill, Whitaker's Mill for the first century of its existence alternated between working wool and cotton; but by the late 1920s it was solely working recycled cotton. In 1967 Higher Mill closed and  was taken over by the Higher Mills Trust who maintained it as a museum.

Although a considerable part of Whitaker's Mill was destroyed in a fire in 1857, it was rebuilt shortly afterwards and continued to be in operation until 1978. It was then acquired by the council, who by then had taken over running Higher Mill on behalf of the Trust, and the two mills were joined as one museum.

Helmshore’s railway line was constructed in 1849, but the route went right through the East corner of Higher Mill! The owner at the time, William Turner (1793 - 1852), however happily agreed to the plan as he received around £5000 in compensation (that’s equivalent to around £400,000 in today’s money!) With this, he was able to replace the two small waterwheels powering the fulling machinery with a single bigger (and more efficient) breast shot waterwheel, which is still in use today!

On the ground floor of Higher Mill is the fully operational, large waterwheel which used to drive five pairs of fulling stocks and all the other machinery in Higher Mill.

Our current waterwheel is a big high breast shot wheel, which replaced two smaller ones, and is fed by a large mill pond. Power is generated by the weight of the water in the buckets of the wheel, which each holds about 70 gallons (300 litres), turning the wheel through gravity rather than by the flow of a watercourse. The heavier the load of water, the greater the power generated.

The wheel includes original metalwork which dates back to the late 1840s, while the wood dates back to various repair and restoration projects over the wheel's long life. The latest restoration project was in 2014, when the large central oak spokes were all replaced to ensure that the wheel will keep operating for many more decades to come.