It is curious that there is no reference to a mill at Guildford in the Domesday Survey of 1086. A town important enough to have its own mint by 975 must certainly have had a mill to supply its needs: Domesday must have omitted it for some reason. The first Guildford mill for which we have a definite record stood in the early 13th century on Westnye, a small island by the Town Bridge by St. Nicholas’ church, where the White House pub stands today. This piece of ground remained as an island until the later 18th century when the channel, which separated it from St. Nicholas, was filled in. This belonged to the manor of Artington and to the south of it was a mead on which horses grazed called Mill Mead: this name has survived to the present day. There was another mill on the other side of the river on or near the present site below the Castle. This belonged to the Testard family who had been given lands in Guildford by William the Conqueror. There was a squabble between the owners of the Artington Mill - together with Sir Richard Testard - and Henry III, when the king set up his own mills downstream of the bridge in 1251. These consisted of a corn mill, a malt mill, and a fulling mill. This last was used for fulling woollen cloth – a process of pummelling the raw cloth to produce a smooth nap and degrease it for dyeing. This is one of the earliest references to a fulling mill in this country and indicates the flourishing state of the wool trade in Guildford at the time. The King’s Mills, however, dammed the river and caused flooding and other damage to the mills upstream. Finally the King’s Mills were closed down in 1267. During this period the lands held by the Testard family were being acquired by the de la Poyles: by 1295 Walter de la Poyle owned the mill as part of what was to be known as the Manor of Poyle for the next six hundred years. In that year he paid two shillings ‘to have a watercourse at his mill’. This may refer to the embanked leat, which still carries water to the mills. It is interesting to note that for part of its length this stream, and not the natural river to the west, acts as the parish boundary. In 1439 Poyle’s Mill was described as ‘two corn mills and two fulling mills under one roof’, following the established practice of calling each pair of stones a separate mill.

By 1394 Artington Mill also included a fulling mill. John atte Lee, the fuller, also had drying racks or tenter frames nearby in Mill Mead for the fulled and dyed cloth. However, Artington Mill seems to have disappeared by the end of the Middle Ages. By then there was yet another fulling mill nearby; this was on the site of the present sluice gates by the Guildford Boathouse, and was known as the Upper Fulling Mill to distinguish it from those in the Poyle Mills lower downstream. The Upper Fulling Mill had gone by the middle of the 17th century as a result of the decline of the wool trade.

The Manor of Poyle with its mill passed through several families until it was bought in 1624 by Henry Smith, a generous benefactor to Surrey. He gave the manor in trust, the income going to support the poor of Guildford. The mills brought in a very large proportion of the income from the manor. They were rebuilt in 1649 with ‘four corn mills under one roof’ with a separate fulling mill to the east, and in 1665 the Corporation ordered that local mealmen must have their corn ground at the Town Mills, and clothiers must have their cloth fulled there, for the benefit of the poor. The corn trade flourished as Guildford was able to supply the growing needs of London by using the Wey Navigation, opened in 1653, but the fulling trade declined rapidly as cloth making ceased in the area, and in 1713 the fulling mill was converted to corn grinding.

In 1701 William Yarnold had already installed pumps in the fulling mill to supply the town with water. It was pumped up hollowed-out elm logs to a reservoir at the bottom of Pewley Hill, which supplied the consumers in the town, by gravity. The lease of the corn mills to Roger Valler in 1707 provides a wealth of detail about them: there was a miller’s house and a ‘bolting house’ for sifting flour. There were four pairs of stones in the main mill, and fish were farmed in the mill-pool. When the navigation was extended to Godalming in 1760, the miller had to regulate the flow of water to suit the boatmen. There were disputes, throughout the history of the mills, between the riverside landowners, the navigations and rival millers over water levels.

By 1768 the Town Mills had become so dilapidated it was necessary to rebuild the greater part of them and by March 1770 the eastern part had been handsomely rebuilt in brick. The opportunity was taken to change the undershot water-wheels for more efficient breastshot wheels, as the Godalming Navigation had raised the head of water upstream so making more power available. The western part however was simply repaired – this became known as the Hogsmeat Mill because it was used to grind animal food. The north wall was reconstructed because of failing foundations in 1827. In about 1852 the Hogsmeat Mill was finally demolished and was rebuilt as a two-bay extension to the 1770 mill. This followed its style so closely that it is hard to distinguish the join between the parts. The second quarter of the 19th century was a period of great prosperity for English wheat millers, the urban population was growing rapidly and Guildford, with its important corn market and river communication with London, was in a position to supply their needs. In 1858 Henry Chennell built a steam-powered mill in Commercial Road. It was not a success, however, and was sold in 1865 to be converted to the Friary Brewery. However, the increase in imports of wheat, together with the introduction of steam powered roller mills to grind it as the quayside, led to a decline in local milling from the 1850s onwards. By the beginning of the 1890s the Poyle Charity decided to sell the Town Mills and they were bought by Guildford Corporation, who had already acquired the water undertaking at the mills an 1866, and converted as a water works. New pumps were installed in 1896, which is commemorated by a plaque on the wall of the 1852 extension – this has misled many people into thinking that much or all of the building is of that vintage. In 1966 the Water Board leased the mill to the newly opened Yvonne Arnaud Theatre as scenery workshops and the ownership returned to Guildford Corporation in 1971. The mill is now a small studio theatre, but it remains one of the town’s most impressive industrial monuments. There are plans to install a turbine to generate electricity and so restore the mill, at least in part, to its ancient role of using water power for the benefit of the town.

Guildford Museum, Castle Arch, Guildford, Surrey
(01483) 444750

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