Stowupland Watermill

The area of the water mill on 1839 tithe map.

The tithe map of 1839 and early ordinance survey maps show a watermill immediately downstream of the bridge across the river on the site of the later gun cotton works and now the ICI factory. The 1793 navigation bypassed the original course of the river at this point, the original stretch of river forming the mill race and mill pond. This stretch has since been filled in.The site of Stowupland watermill. the X marks the swing bridge the appears in the foreground of the photo below

This mill on the Stowupland side of the river (the river at that time forming the parish boundary) was in 1817 owned by Mr. Pearl Cross. Subsequently it was owned by his widow Sarah and daughter Elizabeth. On  17th July 1852 William Freeman records “went with Owen Ridley to bath at Miss Cross’s Mill”
The mill was sold by the Cross family in 1860 when a Henry Wicks was miller there and it was described as a mill of four floors with three pairs of millstones. It is uncertain when milling ceased but the mill would have surely been severely damaged in the 1871 explosion at the close by gun cotton factory and probably whatever remained was demolished.

The watermill buildings can be see to the far left of the tree in this photo of the aftermath of the 1871 explosion looking from the swing bridge.