Husborne Crawley Mills

 

drawing of a windmill at Mill Lane [R4/608/18/5] about 1800

Two mills are mentioned as being part of the manor of Husborne Crawley in the Domesday Book| of 1086. Clearly, it is not known exactly where these were. Mills have been identified at five separate locations in the parish in later times - a windmill at Crawley Heath Farm, in Woburn Park but in the parish of Husborne Crawley; a windmill on the border with Aspley Guise at Wednesden Hill, a clay mill, watermill and windmill at Crawley Mill Farm in Mill Lane; two watermills at a place called Ypewellmyll; and a watermill in Horsepool Lane.

Crawley Heath Farm

The first mention of a mill in this location is in 1691 when Thomas Cartwright of Finsbury [Middlesex], leased two roods of land to Thomas How of Aspley Guise in Sand Field next to the windmill [HW25]. The only other reference comes in 1803 in the estate correspondence of the Duke of Bedford [R4/608/18/5] when an estimate for the windmill at Crawley Heath Farm was given:

"Estimate for Erecting a Threshing Mill to go by Wind of Horses occasionally -

To Erect on the Top of the present Barn a complete Smock Mill to run Eight Yards of Cloth with proper Machinery to work a Threshing Mill in the Barn and to Erect a complete Threshing Machine equal to the power of Three or four Horses with Horse Movements to be used occasionally

For the Machinery £300

For the Frame of the Mill exclusive of Timber £100"

Horsepool Lane

There is only one reference to this mill and that is in the Coroner's rolls translated by R.F.Hunnisett in Volume XLI of the Bedfordshire Historical Records Society series, it is entry 92: "On 30 Oct 1269 Thomas son of Thomas Julian of Crawley came to the abbot of Woburn's mill called Horssepol in the parish of Husborne Crawley, opened the door and about prime [6 a.m.] allowed Hugh le Wannere to enter with a small sack full of malt. Thomas took some grease to grease the lower wheel of the mill with his left hand and stood too close to it so that the wheel held him and broke the whole of his left arm. Hugh, seeing this, shut the mill and shouted. Robert son of Muriel came and they rescued him alive and afterwards brought him to the house of his father Robert [sic]. He died after nones [3 p.m.] on the same day…." At the following eyre (a court held by itinerant justices who travelled a circuit) it was stated that Thomas, then called son of Thomas Galyon had been greasing the inner wheel when he was crushed between it and the spindle. It was also said that he died three days later.

The name Horsepool, of course, survives today in the name of Horsepool Lane. This might suggest that the mill was somewhere just off the lane. However, there was another mill in Husborne Crawley called Ypewell, only about a quarter of a mile away and it is possible that these two mills, in operation at about the same time and both belonging to the Abbot of Woburn may have been one and the same.

Carters Grove (the nearest group of trees) seen from Gypsy Lane Aspley Guise July 2007

Ypewell

This mill is first mentioned in the Dunstable Cartulary [a collection of charters documenting the land owned and leased by Dunstable Priory] published as volume X of the Bedfordshire Historical Records Society series. Entry 454 records an agreement between Woburn Abbey and Dunstable Priory about a number of mills, including that at Ypewell. A later entry records land near the mill being given to Dunstable Priory by Nicholas de Tingrith and, crucially, entry 490, for an unspecified year between 1205 and 1250, reads: “N[icholaus de Tingri] grants a seylon in Craule above Yppewelle and near the prior’s marl pit”.

The reference to the marl pit is crucial in identifying where Yppewell was. The Duke of Bedford’s estate archive contains a map [R1/226] showing lands owned by him in Husborne Crawley and shows two pieces of land lying together, one called Marl Pit Close the other Mill Piece. These lie west of Turnpike Road and south-west of Horsepool Lane near a place called Carter’s Grove which lies on Crawley Brook.

One further reference to Ypewell exists in material held by Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Society and that is a document from 1539 [Fac.1.SC6/HenVIII/30] in which it is recorded that Thomas Nicholls rented of two watermills, one called Nichollsmyll and one called Ypwellmyll, from Woburn Abbey, which had been demised in 1535 for 20 years.

Ypewell Mill and Horsepool Lane mill would have lain about a quarter of a mile from one another, which seems rather close for them both to have been in operation at the same time. It is, therefore, possible that they were one and the same.

 
Watemill and pug mill in Mill Lane about 1810 [Z49/656]

Mill Lane

As the name implies this area, around Crawley Mill Farm (now Woburn Expermiental Farm), has long been associated with various mills. A painting [Z49/656] of the turn of the 18^th and 19^th centuries shows the water mill and a pug mill. The pug mill was designed to shop up and shape clay into the right size for bricks, it lies on the extreme left of the picture. In estate correspondence of 1804 [R4/608/18/6] an estimate for machinery for the windmill at Crawley Mill is given as follows (it lay on the opposite, east, side of Mill Lane to the watermill and clay mill):

"Estmate for Millwork at Crawley Mill exclusive of Timber:
- Labor Nails Sawing and Ironwork to a New 15 foot water Wheel 5 feet wide £45;
- Ditto to Shaft with New Gudgeons Hoops and Brasses £22/10/-;
- Ditto to New 15 foot Beveld Pit Wheel fixed on water Wheel Shaft £21/10/- Query if in fact Dist £15.10.0;
- Ditto to New Hurst Bridge Trees &c Complete £20;
- Taking down altering and refixing upright Shaft from Windmill with Spur wheel and Beveld Pinion on Ditto and refixing present Brasses £10;
- Labour Nails Sawing & Ironwork to a New Beveld Crown Wheel on Top of shaft £7/10/-;
- Ditto to a Beveld Pinion and Tumbling Shaft with 2 strap Riggers on Ditto with Iron & Brasses £16/15/-;
- Removing and laying up two pair of stones from Windmill with iron Boxes or alteration to Spindles and 2 new Pinions - refixing Hoops Hoppers &c complete £22;
- Removing and refixing 2 meal Bins from Windmill £2;
- Removing and making good Flour Mill from Windmill (including new Deal) £15;
- Ditto Ditto Wire Machine £20;
- Sack Tackle Complete £24;
£232/5/9"

In the same year an estimate is given for improving the watermill [R4/608/18/7] as follows:

“Estimate for Rebuilding first and then Alterations:
- To Rebuilding part of the Mill Building with Brick wall & Tiled Roof as for plan - exclusive of materials from Windmill and in present end of water Mill and of Timber £170;
- To Completing Millwork at the New End of Mill as per Plans including a Flour Mill and Wire Machine exclusive of machinery from Windmill and of Timber £232;
- To Conveying water from Brook on to the Wheel at North West and with making Bank &c as per Plan £94;
£496"

In the 1830s more work was being contemplated on the mills, a letter of 1830 [R3/3283] refers to directions having been sent: "for making soak ditches". The following year in a letter [R3/3286] it was noted that: "The Duke thinks Sheppard will not be competent to erect new mills at Crawley but that Jeffreys will. In 1836 it was noted that outer wall repairs had been completed the previous summer but that the mill needed a new water wheel [R3/3916] and in the same year it was noted [R3/3925]: "Crawley Mill is not of itself sufficient employment for a capitalist if it does not go with Smith's farm it should go with Peters'". In another letter [R3/4822(b)] of 1844 it was noted that there had been previous discussions about using Crawley mill solely to send water to the Abbey and abolishing it as a corn mill but that the plan was abandoned.

The windmill on Wednesden Hill in the mid C18th [X1/30]

Wednesden

The mill at Wednesden is shown plainly on a map of Aspley Guise, where the slight rise shown on the modern photograph appears about the size of Glastonbury Tor! This 18th cetury drawing is roughly contemporaneous with the two pieces of documentary evidence held at Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service. In his will of 1710 [M1/1/14] Samuel Browne of Aspley Guise, baker devised his mill in Husborne Crawley and bakehouse and cottage in Aspley Guise in trust for his wife Elizabeth, and, after her death, to his brother Matthew Browne.

 

site of Wednesden Mill (in the trees) - March 2007

Fifteen years later the mill in Husborne Crawley and the bakehouse in Aspley Guise was leased [M1/1/30] by Lord of the Manor Edmond Williamson to Thomas Monk of Southwark [Surrey]. the bakehouse was occupied by Richard Bumpstead and the mill is described as being on Wednesden Hill. An inventory accompanies the will and notes as follows:
- Dwelling: one deal dresser; one baron rack; six shelves;
- In Bakehouse: one oven; long moulding board; two large dough troughs; three wooden pails; one beam and dough scales; one copper and ladle; two shelves; one dough grate and knife;
- In Outhouses: five shelves and one dresser;
- In Yard: two hovels; one leaden pump and horse trough; a small stone trough;
- Belonging to the Mill: four mill stones; a great gable; eight sails of cloth thereunto belonging; an iron crow;
- In Shop: two flour bins; one beam and tin flour scale; a peck weight; a half peck weight; a pottle weight; a two pound weight; a half pottle weight; a one pound weight; a box of small weights; one shelf and dresser;
- Meal Chamber: one flour mill; three flour and two wheat bins; one shovel and brush 

In the early twentieth century a bakehouse was built in Bedford Road very near the site of the former windmill. It is tempting to think that the bakehouse mentioned in the will and lease were somewhere nearby too, though there is no evidence for it.