Ifield Water Mill
Encyclopedia
Ifield Water Mill is a 19th-century weatherboarded
watermill
in the Ifield neighbourhood of Crawley
, a town and borough
in West Sussex
, England
. Built on the site of an earlier, smaller flour mill, which itself replaced an iron forge
—one of many in the Crawley area—it fell into disuse in the 1930s. The local council, which acquired the land for housing development in the 1970s, leased the mill to local enthusiasts, who restored it to working order. The mill and an associated house are listed buildings, and there is also a cottage (not listed) on the site.
. Small brooks
and tributaries of the River Mole run through the soil, which is an area of Weald clay
between the sandier soil to the south and a narrow outcrop of limestone
further north. At least one mill had been established in the village by the 13th century, although this was further north. No records of its ownership survive, but tithe
documents refer to it several times and it may have belonged to the Lord of the Manor.
An iron forge existed on the site by the late 16th century. The Lord of the Manor owned the section of Ifield Brook (a tributary of the Mole) which ran from the furnace
at nearby Bewbush, 1 miles (1.6 km) to the southwest. The brook was dammed in the 16th century to form a mill pond
, which provided power for the forge. By 1606, "a house, barn, mill, mill pond and two crofts
of land known as Ifield Mill and Ifield Mill Pond"Quoted in the deed
s of the mill. had been established. The Middletons, a rich local family who owned many ironworks across Sussex
, lease
d the mill and its associated buildings. They were also tenants of the Bewbush furnace.
The Sussex iron industry declined quickly in the mid-17th century. Bewbush furnace closed in 1642 because the area had been completely deforested and there was no more wood to use for fuel; the following year, as the English Civil War
raged, Parliamentarians
overran the area and destroyed all remnants of the industry. The site of Ifield forge was cleared, and a corn mill was built in its place. (At the time, the generic name "mill" was used to describe forges, and their operators were called "millers" or "farmers". This makes it difficult to determine exactly when the change happened.) It was definitely operating by 1660, when a local Quaker, William Garton, operated it. He was regularly imprisoned for his religious beliefs over the next 25 years, even though Ifield was a hotbed of Nonconformism
(being the site of one of the first Quaker meeting houses in the world).
The mill was a small-scale operation at first, but as the milling process became more efficient it was able to expand. It was rebuilt in 1683. The Middleton family owned the mill and its associated buildings outright by this time; another prosperous local businessman, Leonard Gale, bought it in 1715. By 1759 it had passed out of his family and began a 50-year period in which various combinations of partners owned it. By this time it was the largest corn mill in the area; when Napoleon
threatened to invade the United Kingdom, a survey was undertaken to determine the output of all mills, which found that Ifield Mill could supply 16 sacks of flour and 120 loaves of bread each day. Other local mills could manage no more than four sacks per day.
Despite its efficient output, the mill fell into disuse in the 1810s after London-based businessman Abraham Goldsmid
bought it in 1809. It lay unused for eight years until Thomas Durrant, a miller from nearby Merstham
, bought it for £1,200 in 1817. Durrant was the first owner who also acted as miller, and under his ownership the mill was completely rebuilt.
to Horsham
. This originally crossed it on a bridge, but an embankment
soon replaced it. Also, in 1837, a competing windmill
had been built near the centre of the village, and two other millers were recorded in Ifield parish by 1821. Gradual decline continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; the mill passed through many owners, and even one long-established family of owner-millers, the Hardings, struggled. A steam engine driven by a waterwheel had been installed, but the engine often had to be worked manually because the water power was so feeble. The mill was no longer in use by 1927, and it was put up for sale with the adjacent Mill Cottage in 1934. Described as "a gentleman's residence with a picturesque disused water mill", it was clear that the mill's importance had ebbed away.
The mill stood unused, apart from for storage, and nominally for sale until Crawley Borough Council used a compulsory purchase order
to buy it in 1974. The council was acquiring land on the edge of Ifield for housing. It allowed a group of volunteers to attempt to restore the mill, which was in poor structural condition. Work started on 15 June 1974.
All parts of the structure were affected by the neglect and long period of disuse. Trees had invaded the building, dislodging the roof; the main timbers holding the building up were rotting and needed replacement; a retaining wall had collapsed inwards; and the water wheel, while still sound, was embedded in the mud. The work took eight years—much longer than the original estimate of three, although large donations of money paid for many interior fittings which had not been taken into account. Three staircases, the board cladding on the inside walls and the wooden floors were all renewed, and all windows were refitted to their original design. On the exterior, the weatherboarding was removed and a layer of waterproof cladding installed. Much of the boardwork had to be replaced, although the original appearance was preserved. The roof was also repaired inside and out to prevent it decaying any further.
Replacing the load-bearing timbers and supports was particularly difficult. The whole building had to be lifted with hydraulic jacks and suspended aloft temporarily while new timbers were installed. Work on the water wheel and its surrounding brick structure was also difficult and took several years. Parts of the wheel were salvaged and incorporated into the rebuilt oak and steel structure. The walls supporting it were totally rebuilt at the same time. A sluice gate
was built across the mill pond, and a flow control mechanism was brought in from the disused Hammonds Mill in Burgess Hill
, also in West Sussex. The wheel is of the overshot type—the largest such wheel in Sussex—weighs around 6 LT (6.1 t; 6.7 ST), has a diameter of 11 feet (3.4 m) and can rotate at between 8 and 15 revolutions per minute depending on water flow.
Despite its scale and the difficulty of many of the tasks, the restoration was carried out almost entirely by volunteers working mostly at weekends. Some unemployed people enrolled in a job creation program
me were briefly used, but no professional engineers, construction personnel or other qualified workers were employed at any time during the eight-year process.
Efforts have been made to improve the ecological and wildlife balance of the mill pond and the surrounding area. The northern part of the pond had to be drained in 1976 during the reconstruction work, and trees started to become established in the bed; the part south of the railway line, meanwhile, was described as a "virtual desert" ecologically. By 1979, however, it had been restocked with more than 30,000 fish, and birds quickly became established again: a study recorded 58 species. The soil is considered to be of good quality, which improves the chances of suitable vegetation becoming established.
roof has eaves
carried out beyond the walls on brackets
. The mill hoist
, whose surrounding timberwork and brickwork was found to be very badly corroded during the restoration, projects from the north face.
on 21 June 1948. It is one of 79 Grade II structures, and 100 listed buildings of all grades, in the Borough of Crawley. The Borough Council still own the building, but it is leased to Crawley Museum Society. Before Crawley Museum was established in Goffs Park in the Southgate neighbourhood, a temporary museum and exhibition was housed in the mill.
The mill house and cottage were also bought by the council as part of their land acquisition programme, and have been leased to private tenants since then. The mill house, a 16th-century half-timbered
building with modern additions in brick, is now a public house
. It has an original tiled hipped roof
, but much of the building was remodelled in the 20th century in the style of the old structure. It was listed at Grade II on 1 May 1974. The cottage is not listed separately by English Heritage
. It was built in the 16th or 17th century as a barn, but was converted to residential use in the 1930s.
Weatherboarding
Weatherboarding is the cladding or ‘siding’ of a house consisting of long thin timber boards that overlap one another, either vertically or horizontally on the outside of the wall. They are usually of rectangular section with parallel sides...
watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
in the Ifield neighbourhood of Crawley
Crawley
Crawley is a town and local government district with Borough status in West Sussex, England. It is south of Charing Cross, north of Brighton and Hove, and northeast of the county town of Chichester, covers an area of and had a population of 99,744 at the time of the 2001 Census.The area has...
, a town and borough
Borough status in the United Kingdom
Borough status in the United Kingdom is granted by royal charter to local government districts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The status is purely honorary, and does not give any additional powers to the council or inhabitants of the district...
in West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Built on the site of an earlier, smaller flour mill, which itself replaced an iron forge
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
—one of many in the Crawley area—it fell into disuse in the 1930s. The local council, which acquired the land for housing development in the 1970s, leased the mill to local enthusiasts, who restored it to working order. The mill and an associated house are listed buildings, and there is also a cottage (not listed) on the site.
History of the site
The area around Ifield was originally thickly wooded, forming part of St Leonard's ForestSt Leonard's Forest
St. Leonard's Forest is at the western end of the Wealden Forest Ridge which runs from Horsham to Tonbridge, and is part of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It lies on the ridge to the south of the A264 between Horsham and Crawley with the villages of Colgate and Lower Beeding...
. Small brooks
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
and tributaries of the River Mole run through the soil, which is an area of Weald clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
between the sandier soil to the south and a narrow outcrop of limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
further north. At least one mill had been established in the village by the 13th century, although this was further north. No records of its ownership survive, but tithe
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
documents refer to it several times and it may have belonged to the Lord of the Manor.
An iron forge existed on the site by the late 16th century. The Lord of the Manor owned the section of Ifield Brook (a tributary of the Mole) which ran from the furnace
Furnace
A furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven.In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace , and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the...
at nearby Bewbush, 1 miles (1.6 km) to the southwest. The brook was dammed in the 16th century to form a mill pond
Mill pond
A mill pond is any body of water used as a reservoir for a water-powered mill. Mill ponds were often created through the construction of a mill dam across a waterway. In many places, the common proper name Mill Pond name has remained even though the mill has long since gone...
, which provided power for the forge. By 1606, "a house, barn, mill, mill pond and two crofts
Croft (land)
A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer.- Etymology :...
of land known as Ifield Mill and Ifield Mill Pond"Quoted in the deed
Deed
A deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, or affirms or confirms something which passes, an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions sealed...
s of the mill. had been established. The Middletons, a rich local family who owned many ironworks across Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, lease
Lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...
d the mill and its associated buildings. They were also tenants of the Bewbush furnace.
The Sussex iron industry declined quickly in the mid-17th century. Bewbush furnace closed in 1642 because the area had been completely deforested and there was no more wood to use for fuel; the following year, as the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
raged, Parliamentarians
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
overran the area and destroyed all remnants of the industry. The site of Ifield forge was cleared, and a corn mill was built in its place. (At the time, the generic name "mill" was used to describe forges, and their operators were called "millers" or "farmers". This makes it difficult to determine exactly when the change happened.) It was definitely operating by 1660, when a local Quaker, William Garton, operated it. He was regularly imprisoned for his religious beliefs over the next 25 years, even though Ifield was a hotbed of Nonconformism
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
(being the site of one of the first Quaker meeting houses in the world).
The mill was a small-scale operation at first, but as the milling process became more efficient it was able to expand. It was rebuilt in 1683. The Middleton family owned the mill and its associated buildings outright by this time; another prosperous local businessman, Leonard Gale, bought it in 1715. By 1759 it had passed out of his family and began a 50-year period in which various combinations of partners owned it. By this time it was the largest corn mill in the area; when Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
threatened to invade the United Kingdom, a survey was undertaken to determine the output of all mills, which found that Ifield Mill could supply 16 sacks of flour and 120 loaves of bread each day. Other local mills could manage no more than four sacks per day.
Despite its efficient output, the mill fell into disuse in the 1810s after London-based businessman Abraham Goldsmid
Goldsmid
Goldsmid is the name of a family of Anglo-Jewish bankers who sprang from Aaron Goldsmid , a Dutch merchant who settled in England about 1763. Two of his sons, Benjamin Goldsmid and Abraham Goldsmid Goldsmid is the name of a family of Anglo-Jewish bankers who sprang from Aaron Goldsmid (died 1782),...
bought it in 1809. It lay unused for eight years until Thomas Durrant, a miller from nearby Merstham
Merstham
Merstham is a village in the Reigate and Banstead borough of Surrey, England, in the London commuter belt. It is just north of Redhill, near the intersection of the M25 and M23 motorways, on the edge of the North Downs and on the North Downs Way.-History:...
, bought it for £1,200 in 1817. Durrant was the first owner who also acted as miller, and under his ownership the mill was completely rebuilt.
The rebuilt watermill
The 1683 building was demolished and the structure which stands today was built in its place. A decorative stone tablet with the date 1683 and the initials of Thomas Middleton and his wife Mary was salvaged and mounted on the exterior. (Middleton was the owner at the time of the 1683 rebuilding.) Thomas Durrant spent £3,500 on construction. This money came from successful litigation against a group of miners whose actions damaged the water supply to his mill at Merstham and rendered it useless; a similar problem started to affect the Ifield mill soon after it was rebuilt. The water supply began to fail as the brook's flow became weaker, and in 1848 the mill pond was cut in half by the building of the railway lineArun Valley Line
The Arun Valley Line, also known as the Mid Sussex Line, is part of the Southern-operated railway services. For the initial part of the route trains follow the Brighton Main Line, and at a junction south of Three Bridges the route turns westwards...
to Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
. This originally crossed it on a bridge, but an embankment
Embankment (transportation)
To keep a road or railway line straight or flat, and where the comparative cost or practicality of alternate solutions is prohibitive, the land over which the road or rail line will travel is built up to form an embankment. An embankment is therefore in some sense the opposite of a cutting, and...
soon replaced it. Also, in 1837, a competing windmill
Windmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
had been built near the centre of the village, and two other millers were recorded in Ifield parish by 1821. Gradual decline continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; the mill passed through many owners, and even one long-established family of owner-millers, the Hardings, struggled. A steam engine driven by a waterwheel had been installed, but the engine often had to be worked manually because the water power was so feeble. The mill was no longer in use by 1927, and it was put up for sale with the adjacent Mill Cottage in 1934. Described as "a gentleman's residence with a picturesque disused water mill", it was clear that the mill's importance had ebbed away.
Restoration
Compulsory purchase order
A compulsory purchase order is a legal function in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland that allows certain bodies which need to obtain land or property to do so without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for public betterment - for...
to buy it in 1974. The council was acquiring land on the edge of Ifield for housing. It allowed a group of volunteers to attempt to restore the mill, which was in poor structural condition. Work started on 15 June 1974.
All parts of the structure were affected by the neglect and long period of disuse. Trees had invaded the building, dislodging the roof; the main timbers holding the building up were rotting and needed replacement; a retaining wall had collapsed inwards; and the water wheel, while still sound, was embedded in the mud. The work took eight years—much longer than the original estimate of three, although large donations of money paid for many interior fittings which had not been taken into account. Three staircases, the board cladding on the inside walls and the wooden floors were all renewed, and all windows were refitted to their original design. On the exterior, the weatherboarding was removed and a layer of waterproof cladding installed. Much of the boardwork had to be replaced, although the original appearance was preserved. The roof was also repaired inside and out to prevent it decaying any further.
Replacing the load-bearing timbers and supports was particularly difficult. The whole building had to be lifted with hydraulic jacks and suspended aloft temporarily while new timbers were installed. Work on the water wheel and its surrounding brick structure was also difficult and took several years. Parts of the wheel were salvaged and incorporated into the rebuilt oak and steel structure. The walls supporting it were totally rebuilt at the same time. A sluice gate
Sluice
A sluice is a water channel that is controlled at its head by a gate . For example, a millrace is a sluice that channels water toward a water mill...
was built across the mill pond, and a flow control mechanism was brought in from the disused Hammonds Mill in Burgess Hill
Burgess Hill
Burgess Hill is a civil parish and a town primarily located in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England, close to the border with East Sussex, on the edge of the South Downs National Park...
, also in West Sussex. The wheel is of the overshot type—the largest such wheel in Sussex—weighs around 6 LT (6.1 t; 6.7 ST), has a diameter of 11 feet (3.4 m) and can rotate at between 8 and 15 revolutions per minute depending on water flow.
Despite its scale and the difficulty of many of the tasks, the restoration was carried out almost entirely by volunteers working mostly at weekends. Some unemployed people enrolled in a job creation program
Job creation program
Job Creation Programs are programs or projects undertaken by a government of a nation to assist unemployed members of the population in securing employment. A cornerstone of Keynesian economics, they are especially common during time of high unemployment...
me were briefly used, but no professional engineers, construction personnel or other qualified workers were employed at any time during the eight-year process.
Efforts have been made to improve the ecological and wildlife balance of the mill pond and the surrounding area. The northern part of the pond had to be drained in 1976 during the reconstruction work, and trees started to become established in the bed; the part south of the railway line, meanwhile, was described as a "virtual desert" ecologically. By 1979, however, it had been restocked with more than 30,000 fish, and birds quickly became established again: a study recorded 58 species. The soil is considered to be of good quality, which improves the chances of suitable vegetation becoming established.
Architecture
Ifield Water Mill is a tall, externally weatherboarded structure of three storeys, consisting of a brick-built ground floor and two gabled upper floors of timber. The slateSlate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
roof has eaves
Eaves
The eaves of a roof are its lower edges. They usually project beyond the walls of the building to carry rain water away.-Etymology:"Eaves" is derived from Old English and is both the singular and plural form of the word.- Function :...
carried out beyond the walls on brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
. The mill hoist
Hoist (device)
A hoist is a device used for lifting or lowering a load by means of a drum or lift-wheel around which rope or chain wraps. It may be manually operated, electrically or pneumatically driven and may use chain, fiber or wire rope as its lifting medium. The load is attached to the hoist by means of a...
, whose surrounding timberwork and brickwork was found to be very badly corroded during the restoration, projects from the north face.
The site today
Ifield Water Mill was listed at Grade II by English HeritageEnglish Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
on 21 June 1948. It is one of 79 Grade II structures, and 100 listed buildings of all grades, in the Borough of Crawley. The Borough Council still own the building, but it is leased to Crawley Museum Society. Before Crawley Museum was established in Goffs Park in the Southgate neighbourhood, a temporary museum and exhibition was housed in the mill.
The mill house and cottage were also bought by the council as part of their land acquisition programme, and have been leased to private tenants since then. The mill house, a 16th-century half-timbered
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
building with modern additions in brick, is now a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
. It has an original tiled hipped roof
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
, but much of the building was remodelled in the 20th century in the style of the old structure. It was listed at Grade II on 1 May 1974. The cottage is not listed separately by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
. It was built in the 16th or 17th century as a barn, but was converted to residential use in the 1930s.
External links
- Cawley Museum Society - operates the Ifield Watermill
- Ifield Watermill - friends site