The Old Mill at Bettws-y-Coed

The Old Mill at Bettws-y-Coed, painted in 1847 and held in Bury Art Museum, depicts one of the most frequently painted subjects in Cox's annual North Welsh repertoire. The mill at Betws-y-Coed — an ancient working structure on the River Conwy or its tributaries — combined the practical machinery of rural industry with the picturesque weathered stone that appealed to Romantic taste. Cox's treatment emphasises the mill's age and integration into the landscape rather than its mechanical function, treating the building as an organic element grown into its riverbank setting. Bury Art Museum's Cox holdings, representing Lancashire industrial-era patronage, include this 1847 canvas among a group that documents his sustained Welsh engagement. The mill at Betws-y-Coed was also painted by other visiting artists, making Cox's version one of several treatments that can be compared to understand his specific interpretive choices relative to contemporary practice.

The mill's combination of stone architecture, working wheel, and waterside setting gave Cox three distinct material surfaces to render: masonry, weathered wood, and moving water. His handling differentiates these through textural brushwork — tight for stone, more directional for wood grain, fluid for the millrace. The wheel's reflection in the pool below it extends the composition's vertical depth into the water's surface.