A Short History of Burton Mill

A short history of Burton Mill

Its restoration and workings

THE HISTORY OF THE MILL

THE IRON INDUSTRY

The Mill building, as we see it now, has been a mill since about 1780, according to records. There are two date stones in the walls outside. It was built on the foundations of an iron forge. A visitor to Burton in 1653 watched “hot swarthy Vulcans sweating, puffing and hammering, drawing out those rusty sows into barrs by rumbling, noysing, Bedlam water mills”. The Vulcans were assisted by water-powered hammers. Cams on the shaft of the water wheel lifted the hammer to drop many times a minute.

The Wealden Iron Industry of which the Burton Mill site was a part, flourished in the Elizabethan times and in the early 17″ Century. Cast iron was produced from iron ore smelted in blast furnaces which reached about 1,000C, when the iron ran freely. Cannons were made on site and even exported to Spain. The cast iron in the form of pig iron or sows was also taken from the furnaces — there were furnaces at Petworth Park and at Pallingham lock on the river Arun — to an iron forge of which Burton was one, where it was reheated and hammered to reduce the carbon content. Malleable wrought iron, which could be made into weapons and tools was produced with water wheels powering the hammers and bellows for the fire. Many lumps of forge cinder have been found around the Mill including a very rare piece bearing the imprint of the bellows found in the tail race in 1979 which is now on display in one of the windows.

The Doomesday book lists a mill and fishery for 280 eels at Botechitone, as it called Burton but it is thought that the Mill must have been nearer to Burton Park House in the old lost village of Burton, probably under the upper lake. Eels still flourish in the mill pond together with pike and other coarse fish and there is a great variety of bird life including kingfishers and crested grebes. It is thought that the dam under which the Mill shelters, was made to harness the streams coming from the Downs to provide power for the iron industry. The industry was much damaged in the Civil War and eventually the Wealden forests were almost laid bare to provide the necessary charcoal fuel, and iron smelting moved to the coal bearing north country. The forge at Burton was still in existence in 1664 ‘in hope of encouragement’ but no later references have been found.

FIRST RECORDS OF MILLING

The present Burton Mill is first recorded in the Land Tax return of 1780 when it was occupied by Messrs Linfield and Co., evidentally a partnership between John Linfield and John Ibbetson. When the country feared a French invasion in 1801 the Mill returned that it could produce 14 sacks of flour (1.75 tons) every 24 hours. In those days a sack weighed 280 Ibs. Various tenant millers met with mixed fortune, ground grain and lived in the farmhouse (to the north) and at times farmed some land until the end of the 19″ Century. By this time cheap grain was flooding in from America and being ground with steam driven rollers at the ports. In 1893 Burton Park Estate was up for sale, having belonged to the Catholic Biddulph family for the best part of two centuries and before that to the knightly Gorings. According to the 1894 sale particulars the Mill was let at that time to a Mr Slade with a farm of 57 acres, which stretched back to the railway line. The Mill had “4 floors, 2 overshot water wheels, 4 pairs of stones, large corn bins with elevator shoots etc, conveniently arranged with entrance from the main road on the third floor in addition to the entrance from the loading yard below”. The sale particulars went on to advertise “ a pleasant dwelling house built on an eminence with 3 attics, 3 good bedrooms, dining room, pleasant sitting room, kitchen, larder and capital dairy and cellar in the basement’. So most of the front of the house had not been added then.

WATER POWER

Fortunately the Mill has a plentiful and reliable supply of water. The height of the pond only seems to vary by a few inches and there is little chance of flooding, but the still water brings another problem; the encroaching reeds, sedge and water lilies are silting up the pond. In the old days the reed used to be cut back by hand. As well as the 30 acre Mill or Hammer pond there is another pond to the south and above it, Chingford Pond, almost as large. Both are artificial and are fed by springs coming almost directly out of the porous chalk Downs. There is a sluice to the north end of the pond, which lets the water through a pipe under the road to the turbine and the tail race soon rejoins the outflow stream which joins the river Rother after about 2 a mile. In the early 1960’s the dam started to collapse and take the road with it. West Sussex County Council as the Highway Authority carried out the repairs and subsequently acquired the mill and pond. In 1978 it was let for flour milling provided, it was repaired by the tenant.

RESTORATION

At that time the interior was gutted except for the shafting and western turbine, repaired by Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society and the sailors from H.M.S Daedalus. The roof had been kept fairly watertight but as there was no damp proof course, rot had set in from the ground. The building had to be shored up and rotten wooden floors concreted to keep out the vermin. A pair of French Burr mill stones with the gearing and iron hurst frame were found in a disused mill in Wales. They were dismantled and brought here; their great asset being that they stood independently of the framework of the old building and thus vibration, which might have caused much damage, was minimal.

Mr Charles Muddle of Ashington Mill, who came from an old Sussex milling family, repaired the mill stones and rebuilt the hurst frame; he also planned and installed the machinery as well as carrying out the repairs — with a little help from his family and friends. Volunteers have given many Sundays of work. Mr Muddle’s father who took a keen interest in the restoration of Burton, bought Ashington Mill (just off the main London – Worthing road) at the turn of the century. This mill had four pairs of stones and the water wheel was supplemented by a diesel engine. Sadly it was burned down. It was rebuilt as a modern mill but much had been learnt from the old mill – and certain spare parts fitted happily into Burton where the machinery has been set to run at traditional speeds.

GRAIN FLOW

It was considered that Burton Mill, much damaged by wood worm and death watch beetle might not bear the weight of grain in its traditional bins on the top floor so the floor of the lean-to was concreted and new storage bins installed. The lean-to, which originally boasted a low and crooked chimney, may have been used for grain drying. The grain, bought dried from the farm would have gone via elevators to the top of the building where it would have fallen through a holding bin to the old fashioned grain cleaner or “winnower” where a small fan and sifting screens removed weed seeds, dust and small grains. It is driven by belt and shafting off the main horizontal shaft. On farms “the boy” used to turn it by hand! Originally sacks of wheat were delivered to the ground or third floor and lifted to the storage bins by a sack hoist. The pulley and flaps for the operation of this ingenious mechanism are still evident on the top floor.

THE MILL STONES

After the grain has been cleaned it is taken back to the top of the mill and falls down to a bin over the grindstones. These are French Burr stones made from exceptionally hard silicious quartz rock mined outside Paris and imported during the 19″ century. Each stone is made up of pieces carefully cut to shape and bound together with iron bands and topped with plaster of Paris.

Burton’s were made by W. Tinsley, of Ipswich, Suffolk. They usually produce about 1-2 cwt hour depending on fineness of the flour and frequency of “dressing” the stones. To do this means chipping numerous little channels in the top or “runner” stone – the one that goes round – and also the stationary bottom or “bed” stone, so that as the runner stone turns it crosses the grooves in the bed stone at an angle facilitating the cutting and grinding of the grain.

The grain falls through the hopper down the shaking “shoe” or shute into the eye of the stones and works its way to the outer edge through centrifugal force. The surface of the stone is slightly concave near the centre so that grain becomes progressively finely ground as it moves to the outer edges of the stones. Dressing mill stones is a dying art, a skill known to handful of people, mostly the very old, but in the heyday of milling the stone dressing was done either by the miller himself or by travelling stone dressers, perhaps once or twice a year, depending on the hardness of the stones, probably in the quiet times before harvest.

The top stone weighing over ‘2 ton has to be lifted by rope and tackle or stone crane and turned onto its back. Burton Mill stones were dressed in November 1980 and the process took three days, and so the fabric of the mill heard the steady chipping of the stone dresser again after more than 80 years.

THE WATER TURBINES

After John Slade left the mill at the turn of the century flour milling seems to have ceased and by 1905 Burton Mill Farm was being let separately. About 1900 Sir Douglas Hall, who had bought the Burton Park House estate in 1894 replaced the east wheel of the mill by a turbine to supply electricity to the house, as was to be done shortly afterwards at Rudyard Kipling’s house, Batemans, at Burwash in East Sussex. The new turbine drove a dynamo which lit the house through a 220 volt overhead D.C. line carried on posts through the park. Turbine speed was intended to be kept constant by a governor manufactured in 1879 by W.F.Fruen of Minneapolis, USA. The centrifugal governor, having insufficient power to open or close the turbine vanes, was used to engage gear wheels which enabled the vane adjustment to be done by the turbine itself, through the belt drive to the governor and shafting to the turbine vanes. This arrangement inevitably caused excessive hunting so that the house lights grew brighter and brighter and dimmer and dimmer, nearly driving the inhabitants to distraction according to a lady who experienced it.

After the first World War a bank of accumulators giving 220 volts was installed in Burton House and these were charged each day. In 1933 or 1934 the house was connected to the mains following the laying of the National Grid and the plant gradually became derelict. However the eastern turbine casing is still to be seen by the entrance to the Mill; it was set vertically and is of the reaction type. It drove the horizontal shafting 1n the mill through wooden toothed beval wheels which are still visible as is the speed control shafting and gearing.

About 1930, however, refitting work was carried out on the bin floor installing new feed grain conveyors and bins for several types of grain. The explanation seems to be that Major J.S.Courtauld, the then owner, was intending to revive milling at Burton on a large scale but never did. However at about the same time a horizontal-axis inward-flow reaction turbine by Gilkes was installed in the position of the west wheel. It was connected to the existing horizontal shafting which was extended to the “stone” floor to drive a circular saw and also a cattle cake crusher. Up until 1942 the mill was used for sawing timber for use on the estate, chiefly as firewood or for fencing, gateposts and the like. The metal tracks still apparent on the ground floor were for a trolley to carry the logs up to the saw. The trolley and saw are now in the Chalk Pits Museum. In the 1960s the then owner Mr A.V. Kennedy continued to use the turbine for sawing firewood in winter; the operation was carried out by his gardener and chauffeur, the third floor of the mill then being used as garage.

In 1963 part of the mill dam collapsed closing the road and in 1976 the mill became vacant. Since then it has been largely restored by the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society. In 1996 it was further adapted as a private dwelling.

[Author Unknown]