Medway watermills

v t e Watermills of the River Medway and its tributaries
Legend
Source TQ 334 359 51°06′25″N 0°05′37″W / 51.10694°N 0.09361°W / 51.10694; -0.09361 Fen Place Mill West Hoathly Stream Gravetye Foundry Weir Wood Reservoir Mill Place Foundry East Grinstead Stream Brook Mill Dunning's Mill Brambletye Mill Tablehurst Mill Parrock Forge Hartfield Iron Mill Ashurst Mill Ashurst Furnace Chafford Mills Pound Mill Ensfield Mill Limit of navigation Ramhurst Mill Powder Mills Town Lock Town Mill Eldridge Lock Porters Lock East Lock Oak Weir Lock Branbridges Mill Teston Lock Farleigh Lock Friars Mill Borstal Mill Cuxton Mill Priory Mill Strood Tide Mill Strood, Thames and Medway Canal Chatham Tide Mill The Swale Thames Estuary

The

Watermills

The River Medway powered a number of watermills. From source to mouth they were:

Fen Place (Bishes) Mill, Worth

TQ 361 366 51°06′45″N 0°03′17″W / 51.112421°N 0.054732°W / 51.112421; -0.054732 The

Another gun foundry site.[1]^[7]

Brambletye (Castle) Mill, Forest Row.

TQ 4168 3527 51°05′55″N 0°01′26″E / 51.098721°N 0.023758°E / 51.098721; 0.023758 A

TQ 450 352 51°05′52″N 0°04′18″E / 51.097655°N 0.071779°E / 51.097655; 0.071779 This mill was a mainly sixteenth century building. It is most likely to be the "Tellhurst Mill" that J. M. W. Turner sketched c.1795. It had two overshot waterwheels in tandem, with all wooden machinery. The mill ceased working in 1925 and had been demolished by 1936.^A[9]

Parrock Forge, Hartfield

TQ 458 357 51°06′07″N 0°05′00″E / 51.101945°N 0.083399°E / 51.101945; 0.083399 This forge was active during the reign of

This forge was in existence in 1496, when its owner Thomas Wildgoose made his will. Its probable location was below Chartners Farm (square TQ4736).[11]^[13]

Ashurst Mill

TQ 506 389 51°07′46″N 0°09′12″E / 51.129461°N 0.153251°E / 51.129461; 0.153251 This mill was a

TQ 507 390 51°07′49″N 0°09′17″E / 51.130334°N 0.154721°E / 51.130334; 0.154721 This furnace stood just downstream of Ashurst Mill. It was operating between 1574 and 1599. It was owned by someone by the name of Stace in 1574, Sir Walter Waller in 1588–90 (occupied by John Phillips) and in 1599 Thomas Browne sold cannon here.^{[12][15][16][17]}

Chafford Mills, Fordcombe

This was a

This mill stood below Ford Place Farm. It was a corn mill powered by an overshot waterwheel.A^[21]

Ensfield Mill

A long lost mill site. An agreement between Tonbridge Priory and the bishop of Rochester in 1353 mentions a mill at "Yenesfield" - the present day Ensfield Farm.^A

Ramhurst Mill, Leigh

TQ 566 463 51°11′38″N 0°14′31″E / 51.194°N 0.242°E / 51.194; 0.242 In the 1428 will of Sir Thomas Colepeper it is referred to as the mill of Greenerssh. The mill was marked on a map dated 1579.^[22] The mill was marked as Crenhurst Mill on a map of 1769.^[23] Ramshurst Mill was marked on the 1801 Ordnance Survey map,^[24] but not on Greenwoods map dated 1821.^[25] In 1851, Henry Morgan was a millwright living at Ramhurst Mills, Leigh.^A[26][27]

Powder Mills, Leigh (Tunbridge Gunpowder Works)

TQ 573 466 51°11′49″N 0°15′08″E / 51.196853°N 0.252305°E / 51.196853; 0.252305 This was a

TQ 596 467 51°11′50″N 0°17′07″E / 51.197113°N 0.285244°E / 51.197113; 0.285244 An old corn mill site. The mill house survives along with a few walls of the mill, which had a breastshot waterwheel.^A[21] In 2006 Tonbridge Civic Society gave an award to a new-build house that incorporated the mill remains.^[31]

• 
  The Mill House
• 
  The new building on the old walls

Branbridges Mill, East Peckham

TQ 673 485 51°12′40″N 0°23′46″E / 51.211083°N 0.396201°E / 51.211083; 0.396201 This mill was known as "Brantbridge Mill" in 1538, being then valued at £2.6s.8d., owned by Sir Thomas Wyatt. In later years it was run by the Arnold family, who were previously at Bartley Mill, Frant. They took the mill in 1890, and the mill was marked as an oil mill on that year's 25" Ordnance Survey map. The waterwheel was replaced by a turbine, then that was replaced by a gas engine, in turn being replaced by an oil engine. Flour production ceased c.1917 and provender milling ceased c.1947. The mill was burnt down in the 1960s.^A[32]

Hampstead Mill, Yalding

TQ 688 501 approx 51°13′30″N 0°25′06″E / 51.225017°N 0.418411°E / 51.225017; 0.418411 One of two Domesday sites in Yalding, this was a paper mill in 1872.^[33] The site was first used as a chemical works just before the First World War, and eventually became part of ICI.^A[34][35]

Friars Mill, Aylesford

This was a corn mill, serving Aylesford Friary.^A[21]

Borstal Mill

An old tide mill site. The mill was the property of the See of Rochester in 1323, being rebuilt by Hamo de Hethe in that year.^A

Cuxton Mill.

This was a tide mill.^A

Priory Mill, Rochester

This was a tide mill. It stood at the end of George Lane near the town walls. The mill was demolished in the seventeenth century.^A

Strood Tide Mill

TQ 740 690 51°23′36″N 0°29′59″E / 51.393357°N 0.499625°E / 51.393357; 0.499625 The site of this mill is marked by Water Mill Wharf, north of the railway bridge. It belonged to Temple Strood Manor and in the mid-fourteenth century contained "two water mills under one roof". An engraving by S & N Buck dated 1721 shows the mill, and it appears in "A Distant View of Rochester and Chatham" by Joshua Farington, RA, in 1790. A sketch by W H Reynolds shows the mill in greater detail, and was done at a later date. The mill had two undershot waterwheels and was valued in the Church Rate Books of 1764 at £64.1s.1d. Latterly a steam engine was installed to enable the mill to work for longer periods.^A The mill was demolished in 1858. Latterly it drove five pairs of millstones, one wheel worked two pairs of French Burr stones and one pair of Peak stones. The other wheel worked two pairs of French Burr stones, wheat cleaners, flour dressers and the sack hoist.^[36]

Chatham Tide Mill

TQ 757 683 51°23′12″N 0°31′25″E / 51.386546°N 0.523689°E / 51.386546; 0.523689 There was a tide mill marked on 1575/1610 maps of the Brook area of Chatham, where the Old Bourne River entered the Medway. By 1765, the Mill is not on the map and the river had been canalised, running alongside the road known as the Brook, and soon after it had been culverted.^[37]

Watermills on the tributaries

The vast majority of the watermills were on the tributaries. The watermills on the tributaries feeding in above Penshurst are covered in the upper tributaries article, while those watermills on the tributaries feeding in between Penshurst and Yalding are covered in the middle tributaries article. Those on the tributaries feeding in below Yalding are covered in the lower tributaries article.

Sources