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201. Coggeshall Mill, Essex
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wheels, a more sophisticated arrangement than those built beside their streams with the wheel outside.
While corn-milling was the primary function of most water-mills, in some areas from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century the fulling trade was equally important. A large number of the water-mills were built or rebuilt as fulling mills to be converted to cornmills by the end of the eighteenth century as the cloth industry died out and the demand for bread increased. Some water-mills carried out both trades. Although corn-milling and fulling were their principal uses,
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mills were often put to crushing seeds for oil and the pulping rags for paper.
Not all water-mills used rivers to drive the wheels: in some coastal areas tidal-power was used. The South-West, parts of the south coast and the low-lying coastal regions of Essex and Suffolk were amongst the limited number of areas in England suitable for this type of mill. Tide-mills, as this type of mill is known, were usually situated along shallow creeks, often some miles from the coast, and on large ponds constructed to hold the water of the incoming tide. The ponds
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varied greatly in size: one at St Osyth’s, Essex, was over thirty acres in area; another, at Birdham, Sussex, was thirty acres, although the majority seem to be less than ten acres. The disadvantage of these tide-mills was that they could be used only on the ebb tide as the millpond emptied, but they had one advantage over river mills in that they did not suffer from the effects of drought. These tide-mills were once a familiar sight around the coast, but today only two survive. The most famous is the one at Woodbridge (203), built probably in
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the eighteenth century on the site of an earlier mill and continuing to be worked commercially by water power until 1957 when the main wheel-shaft broke. At one time the mill seemed destined to follow the fate of the tide-mill at St Osyth’s which, despite much concern by local people, fell down in 1962. Fortunately the mill at Woodbridge was finally saved and work commenced in 1971, when the estimate for the repairs was £50,000. The final cost was over £70,000. The only other surviving timber-framed tide mill stands at Thorrington, Essex. The present building dates from 1841, but it is on the site of previous mills which can be traced back to 1675. The mill worked by water until 1926 when the iron wheel failed, after which it was driven by a portable steam-engine. After ceasing work it was used for many years as a seed store before being purchased in 1974 by Essex County Council with the intention of restoring it to full working order.
Warehouses and storage buildings from another group of timber – framed buildings which must at one time have been common, particularly in parts along the east coast. The most famous perhaps is the Haseatic Warehouse, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, a jettied building dating from the fourteenth century, now converted to offices. A large sixteenth-century warehouse, until recently used by a firm of local brewers as a bottle store, has recently been discovered at Ipswich, Suffolk. Unfortunately it has been dismantled to make way for road improvements, but it is hoped that it will be re-erected when a suitable site has been found. A former timber-framed warehouse also survives at 32 Close, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but this, like so many, has been converted to other uses. The largest timber-framed warehouse is undoubtedly the one at Faversham, formerly known as Provender Mill; it stands on the creek and is still used to store grain and animal feed. The building dates from the seventeenth century and, although now largely underbuilt with bricks and stone up to the first floor, was undoubtedly timber-framed throughout, for full height posts and wattle-and-daub infilling remain at the rear. Above first-floor level the building has exposed timber with brick infilling. Its overall length is about 160 feet, the main range being of twelve bays, with a separate three-bay building of later date at the south-west end, while at the other end is a Victorian bay.
As previously mentioned, warehouses often formed part of one side of the courtyard of a merchant’s house. Few such arrangements now survive; the one at Southfields, Dedham, has already been mentioned, but this has long since been converted into tenements, but at Fore Street, Ipswich (205), a private warehouse leading onto the quay forms part of an inner courtyard of a Tudor merchant’s house. This
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