West's Flour Mill, in Barcom Glen    

18 January 1812 The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser

Thomas West takes the Liberty most respectfully to inform the bakers at Sydney, and the public, that with great labour and weighty expense he has been enabled to erect and complete the first water mill that ever has been built or attempted to be built at Sydney.

This mill, is turned by a wheel of l8 feet diameter, and fortunately commanding a good head of water is capable of grinding upwards of four and a half  bushels of wheat within an hour.

West begs to assure the public, that as it must be his wish to bring grist to his mill, so shall he endeavour to deserve it, by an unremitting attention to their commands.

To secure public favor, west means to grind wheat at the rate of fifteen pence per bushel, being 3d. under the price at the windmills, whilst another manifest advantage is held out to his customers in the well-known, fact that water mills grind much finer and better for the bakers than windmills.

The Mill in Barcom Glen is situated near the Surrey Hills, between Woolloomoolloo and the Sydney Common.

Comment:-

Although this article claims the first watermill was built in 1812, other articles state that the first water mill was built 10 years earlier, at Parramatta.