Last week this series of articles down Deptford Creek got to Deptford Bridge where we looked at the Brewery and the week before that at the distillery next to it. I said that we needed to cross the main road there and start working out way down the West Bank - the Lewisham bank - of the Creek. So, off we go.
Up to the 1970s, and for many years previously, when we crossed the road at Deptford Bridge, on the north side would have been to the huge bulk of the Robinson Mill – where Lewisham College is now. If we go down what is now Deptford Church Street there would have been buildings close to the Creek and then a number of small wharves until we reached what is now The Birds Nest pub at Theatre Wharf. This is a very complex area and I think it makes more sense historically if, for the moment, I ignore the modern college buildings and their predecessor Robinson Mills as well as the buildings in Church Street and begin by looking at the oldest building on the Creek - the old ‘Floode Mill’. This was not just the precursor of the Robinson Mill but in effect the industry which shaped this entire area.
The old ‘Floode Mill’ was very old indeed and probably pre-dates the Doomsday Book of 1086. The entry in Doomesday for Lewisham includes 11 water mills. Most of these would have been mill sites up river of Lewisham – there were mills at sites like where Catford Homebase and Peter Pan’s Pool is now. However one of those eleven mills was no doubt the ‘Old Floode Mill’. It was in the area now covered by buildings which belong to Goldsmiths College –probably where the Asquith Gibbes buildings are.
In 1157 Wakelin de Maminot granted to Bermondsey Abbey the annual rent from a water mill in ‘Deptford Town’, which may or may not have been this one. Bermondsey Abbey was a wealthy institution just up the road - near today’s Abbey Road in Bermondsey. The Abbey was an important institution which seems to have taken in as nuns the widows, sisters, daughters of leading families – and no doubt allowed these ladies to remain in touch with national affairs. Bermondsey Abbey collected rents from the mill for 400 years until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. In 1585 it was purchased by Christ’s Hospital who owned it until the 19th century. Christ’s Hospital is a charity set up, following the collapse of what we would call ‘’social services’ after the religious houses were closed by the Dissolution. It was to house the orphans and unsupported children in the City of London – and is still in business today. I think it is significant that the ownership of this Deptford mill was in the hands of important and financially astute bodies for nearly 700 years. It must have been a profitable and stable asset for them.
I have spent some time over the Christmas preparing this article, and I am still very puzzled. How did the mill work? It is difficult to interpret the shape of the Creek – the river Ravensbourne – at that point. It doesn’t look natural! When I started the research for the article I assumed that I would find a nice detailed archaeological report on this site – which is, after all covered in new buildings which usually means one will have been commissioned. With any luck the archaeologists would have consulted modern millwrights and we would have an explanation. But, no, no sign of any such report. If one is out there, please let me know.
In his estimable work on Deptford, the late Christopher Philpotts included sketch maps and one of these is his interpretation of the creek and the mill site in the early medieval period. He has marked the tide mill on a sort of island in the creek and upriver of it is marked ‘Flodmalware’ – ie ‘flood mill weir’ – which held back the tidal waters. The land on which Lewisham stands is ‘Flodmede’ – ‘flood meadow’ – and this meadow was adjacent to the Dover Road. . Elsewhere he mentions ‘Flodmill dyke’ – ‘dyke’ being ‘ditch’.
Typically a tide mill would have worked by the wheel being turned by water flooding in on the incoming high tide. The water would have been impounded up river of the mill and held back by gates. I think we should also realise that such a mill would have had a relatively short life and that there would have been constant rebuilds and probably redesigns in the 700 years we know almost nothing about. Millwrighting is one of the great lost skills of what we think of as the pre-industrial age. They were experts in water management and millstreams and rivers could be reshaped to maximize the effects for the mill. We have no such interpretation for this important mill so we are down to guess work. I see that the Lewisham Council report on the Conservation Area here talks about ‘the Gibbes / Skill Centre Island, where remains of the medieval tide mill and its successors may still be in situ below ground’ – an admission there has been no archeology and no investigation.
We have no really early maps of the Creek and the Olde Floode Mill. The earliest map o which I am aware is the 1690s ‘Travers’ plan’ of Greenwich where the mill is shown at a junction of two streams. Like all the other later maps of the area this layout looks artificial. On some maps the island and the water area to the south of it are marked as ‘Mill Pond’ although it clearly isn’t an enclosed pond for impounded water. The river appears to be divided into two and it is not clear which branch is the course of the natural river. In fact does the natural river actually exist and are both branches artificial? A problem with interpreting the area today and today’s maps is that the Docklands Light Railway has been plonked down on top of this very complex area of mill leats and has clearly altered them. There is another very strange little island which seems to have appeared very recently up river of the area where the mill has said to have been, between the two branches of the river. On some older maps part of the area is shown as having ‘osiers’ growing on it and indeed the City’s Bridge House Estates are known to have had osier beds in this area. Osier is willow growth used for making baskets and similar items and is essentially small scale bushes grown as a crop.
Apparently over the centuries there were complaints of flooding because the Millers at the Floode Mill had raised the height of their floodgates. They also should have coordinated their sluices with those at the Brook Mill further upstream but they didn't always do so.
What was the mill used for? It was probably a corn mill – although it is often foolish to assume that with mills of all ages. As today, all sorts of things needed milling – and we only have to look a mile or so up river to find the Armoury Mill which certainly wasn’t used for corn. However I assume that the Floode Mill was mainly used as a corn mill
So what went on there? We know very little. Most dramatically there is a report of the mill in 1800 when a group of ‘rioters’ went there with the intention of burning it down. This appears to have been connected to riots in the area against the price of bread and lack of food generally. This particular group of rioters had started off in the City of London at the Corn Exchange and carried on through the East End threatening Mills and as well as bakers shops and other such institutions. This raises two questions – one about the sense behind burning down baker’s shops and mills because of bread shortages! Also how did they get across the river to Deptford in the East End – there were plenty of mills in Hackney they could have burnt down with less trouble! However the riot was ‘alarming for its disposition and formidable from its numbers, riotously assembled’. They were prevented ‘from great mischief’ by the local militia and ‘volunteers’.
In 1800 it was said that it was owned and operated by a Mr. William Weller. I don’t know who he was but in effect ‘ownership’ was a lease from Christ’s Hospital. In 1818 when the lease was advertised for sale it was said that the then leaseholder was ‘a trustee of Mr. James Dodson’. The mill was then advertised as having ‘three pairs of stones…. an excellent kiln….stabling…. a piggery .. and a dwelling house’. Some of this, the kiln in particular, seems to imply a more diverse business than a mere corn mill. The new lease was for only six years and it is interesting that its expiry date was 1824 –as we shall see in that year the mill was destroyed.
In 1824 the mill was badly damaged by flooding , probably caused by water coming down the Ravensbourne rather than up the Creek. The Miller was then a Mr. Carver who was living somewhere further down the Creek. Reports described an embankment ‘formed across the creek. to carry on the business of the mill’. In 1824 ‘the water came with such violence that it threatened the destruction of the mill and washed away the embankment ‘ which ‘renders I impossible to carry on the business and a mill itself was much damaged’. The estimated loss was £2,500.
A year later, the mill’s owners, Christ’s Hospital, was offering a building lease on the mill ‘and premises’ which included ‘an osier ground, adjacent. There was also a ‘valuable head of water’. The mill needed rebuilding and they were looking for somebody to do. Mr. Carver appears to have gone and the mill might therefore be of interest to ‘seed crushers, millers and corn factors’. Two years later a Mr. James Redpath was offering for sale what I assume is the remains of the old mill ‘24 ft. of tiles .. 2000 feet of rafters .. lots of useful timbering …an anvil … machinery comprising a spur or flywheel with brasses … two pairs of French stones .. a bolting mill with universal joints .. a water wheel ... with brasses and other sundry items’ . So the mill was rebuilt and continued at work.
The one picture we have of the mill appears to be of the 1820s rebuilding. Again little is heard of the mill apart from an 1840s advisement for the sale of cement and plaster there by a Mr. James Weston. In 1875 a bankruptcy notice was issued for the mill’s operators – a Messrs Kingsford, described as ‘corm factors and biscuit bakers.
In due course the mill was taken over by Robinsons who greatly expanded the site and went on to build a number of other bigger mills there Their mills stood on adjacent sites not only that of the Old Floode Mill. Most histories of the Floode Mill say that Robinsons took it over after the flood in the 1820s. I have found no sign that this is confirmed by the records of Christ’s Hospital and I would suspect it came into Robinson’s control rather later – and would be interested to know about that. Also, by the way, is the freehold still with Christ’s Hospital today?
Flooding continued to be a problem and the flood-gates were still defective in the 1850s. Under Robinsons the mill buildings were expanded over what had been the osier ground and much of Floode Mede. The mill closed in the 1960s, and was demolished after a fire in 1970.
Robinsons were big business and their giant buildings need to be looked at in more detail. Today the site of the old Floode Mill is the Asquith Gibbes buildings of Goldsmith’s College. More about all of that to come.
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