MidhurstHistory-WassellMill

By local author & artist David Johnston

Wassell Mill - about 1920

According to early records, Wassell Mill was built on the site of an iron forge. Thomas Smith, who originated in Petworth was the chief ironmaster who worked Wassell Forge hammer from c. 1579, and probably worked the small furnace below Ebernoe church. He also set up a new furnace c. 1574 in Shillinglee Park but this had become a malt mill by 1620. In 1587, Thomas's son John Smith of Wassell, in partnership with Sampson Colstock (probably of Ifold) rented and worked the furnace at Frith and the forge at Michel Park, so he was operating two forges and one furnace and probably continued to work Shillinglee and Ebernoe furnace: all dependent for their power on the same small stream with its spring in Blackdown. The furnaces and forges were all small and probably short-lived , but John Smith was undoubtedly a considerable iron master; he and a few Strudwicks were our principal industrialists. He bought the 'manor' of Ebernoe for £700 in 1594, possibly at the peak of his fortune. John Smith died in 1616, but Wassell hammer, the only works to be owned by the family, was still working in 1621 and 1640. There were probably too many furnaces in this district for the available ore of which supplies were declining by 1610. John Smith had six sons and five daughters and employed a resident tutor; besides Wassell he had a town house in East Street, Petworth. The family continued at Wassell until about 1687, and the house is shewn on an estate map of 1764 as a 'mansion'. Long since demolished, it lay 200 yards north-west of Wassell mill, where an old barn still survives. In 1764 Wassell pond was large – thirty one acres – but is now silted up. In 1668 the Peacheys became lords of the 'manor' of Ebernoe. During the next hundred years they built up a small estate of 950 acres comprising ten farms and some small holdings in the west of the parish, and it was probably during this period in time, that they converted the Wassell forge to a working water corn mill. Ebernoe House was built in 1786 by William Peachey. In 1798 corn was ground at the Wassell watermill (Ebernoe), and at Shillinglee Park Mill. Before the 1870s, whole families using sickles assisted with the harvest; one man might cut about half an acre in a long day. After the harvest, families were allowed the gleanings which were sent to the nearest mill for grinding. Wassell mill was used occasionally until the 1940s. The miller took the bran for his work, the middlings went to the pig and the flour lasted a few months for bread, an invaluable help in the mid-nineteenth century when wages were very low and when 'growy' bread and swedes were too often the only food. The farm crops were threshed with flails in the barns during the winter. About a mile north of Wassell Mill, can be found the site of another water-powered iron forge situated close to Hammer Bridge on the Northchapel road, which worked at intervals between c.1574 and c. 1650. There is also, close by in Pipers Copse, a very early Iron Age camp – it can be plainly seen whenever the copse is cut. The earthwork was probably thrown up about 2,000 years ago, not long before the Romans arrived to stay. It is important and unusual in being on low ground in the Weald forest, the great majority of such earthworks in Sussex being on top of the Downs. It is small, only 1.2 acres, but most of the single oval bank is fourteen feet above the bottom of the ditch and was originally a few feet higher, so that if it had a palisade on top, it would present a formidable obstacle. There is no convincing evidence, so far, as to why it was built. Some local, poor quality pudding-stone iron ore was found inside the 'camp' and this ore may have been brought there for smelting, but as yet no trace of bloomery cinder has been found. David R.G. Johnston: Sussex author: photographer and Artist. www.davidjohnston.org.uk or email: johnston.david.rg@gmail.com