A little history of this building..

The Penny Royal Watermill was built in 1840 by Andrew Gatenby, his son George and a group of about 30 assigned convicts and ticket-of-leave men. The building was originally located on the Midlands Highway, 61km’s from Launceston.

All of the work was completed by hand in just 10 months which was quite remarkable as it involved over 6,000 blocks (weighing over 1,800 tons), giant timber beams and other materials which had to be secured and carried great distances over uneven and difficult terrain. It is believed that between 400 and 500 of lime mortar must have been used on the mill, all processed with the primitive sand sieves of the 19th century. The main buildings blocks appear so much like sandstone and yet we know all the convict freestone is more like English gritstone. To this day the exact location of the quarry that supplied this beautiful stone remains a mystery.

 In 1972 the building was purchased from its original site and moved to its new home on Paterson Street in Launceston to begin it’s new chapter as a Motel and Restaurant Complex.

During the reconstruction of the building on the new site, it was purposely undertaken at nearly the same angle to the sun as where the old mill stood at its original site.