Abstract

Catteshall Mill on the River Wey at Godalming, Surrey provides a particularly rewarding study in both industrial archaeology and local history. Since the 11th century the site has been used for a variety of industrial activities including corn-milling, malting, fulling, paper-making, tanning, engineering and foundry work. During the early 20th century the property was called Farncombe Mills. It is now known as Catteshall Works and is still used for engineering and other activities. Until the mid-19th century the mill was powered by water-wheels but these were then replaced by steam-engines and a water-turbine. This turbine is the largest and best preserved example of its type known to survive in the country and one of the most significant industrial monuments of Surrey. The buildings also exhibit many other traces of past industrial activities, particularly paper-making and engineering. Another important feature of the mill is its position on the Godalming Navigation, formerly a convenient means of transportation for both raw materials and manufactured goods.

Documentary information about Catteshall Mill is remarkably extensive. This is partly because for 160 years the property belonged to the More family of Loseley and many documents relating to it are contained in the family archive (the Loseley Manuscripts), deposited at the Surrey Record Office [now Surrey History Centre]. In addition a large amount of detailed information on the history of Godalming Hundred, including Catteshall, was collected by Mr Percy Woods (1842–1922) whose manuscript notes and transcripts are held by the Surrey County Library, Godalming. The Navigation, local authority, Quaker and Onslow family records also provide a wealth of information about the mill and this is supplemented during the last 200 years by much printed material especially in the journals of the paper trade. Thus it has been possible to prepare an unusually detailed account of the history of the mill and of its owners, equipment and products.

Godalming formerly had six water-mills. The sites of three of these, Eashing (SU 945 438), Westbrook (SU 966 442) and Catteshall (SU 982 444), are on the Wey. Eashing is upstream, Westbrook near the town and Catteshall downstream near the parish boundary with Shalford. The remaining three mills, Enton (SU 957 406), Ockford (SU 962 433) and Hatch (SU 966 438), are on the River Ock, a fast flowing but small tributary stream which enters the Wey near Westbrook Mill. Catteshall therefore has the greatest flow of water. This is channelled by means of a mill-stream along the south side of the valley to create a head of about 2m of water. This stream is now in fact the official course of the River Wey, the original water-course, the Old River, having been made redundant when the Navigation was constructed. The mill is 32 km by canal from the confluence of the River Wey with the Thames at Weybridge. It is located on alluvium overlying the Hythe Beds of the Lower Greensand.