The Later History of the Wealden Iron Forge at Thursley

This article was sent to the History of Thursley Society by Francis Haveron of the Surrey Industrial History Group on 18th August 1996. It mentions Silk Mill Cottage, Hammer Pond, Pudmore Pond, Ockley Common and other familiar locations.

For further reading on the Wealden Iron industry, we are grateful to David Streeter for these comments, "The Wealden iron industry is extremely well-researched. The classic work is Ernest Straker's Wealden Iron (1931) which Francis Haveron refers to but the current standard work is Henry Cleere's The Iron Industry of the Weald (1985). It includes several references to Thursley including an establishment date of1608 which accords with the lease date of 1610 quoted in the article as 'lately erected and built'. However, by far the best recent general account of the industry is Jeremy Hodginson's The Wealden Iron Industry (2008). It's a less academic book than Cleere, designed to appeal to the general reader as well as the archaeological minded."

When did the Wealden Iron industry final stop in Surrey? Straker, in his classic book “Wealden Iron” (1931), states that although Ashburnham Forge in Sussex worked till 1820, The last Surrey site seems to be that of Thursley which was working in 1767. Most writers follow Straker in quoting Thursley as the one but usually say it closed down round about 1800. A number of leases and legal documents in the Percy Woods Collection* in Godalming library tell us more about the change of ownership of the site in the early 19th C and explain the perhaps surprising name of the house at the site – “Silkmill Cottage”. (SU 918408).

The following is a summary from Straker of the known early history of the Thursley furnace and forge.

“It commences in a lease on May 14th, 1610 as ‘lately erected and built”, probably the last to be set up in Surrey. There is a mortgage of December 17th 1617 and a deed of March 19th 1623 in which Sir George More of Losely demises the mill to Henry Bell of Milford and in 1641 a suit in Chancery largely concerned with fishing rights in the ponds. In 1666 the works were leased for two years, at £10 per annum, to Willian Yalden of Blackdown, a considerable ironmaster, with a very detailed inventory which shows there was a furnace as well as a forge.

Roque’s map of Surrey 1762 shows the Portsmouth Road as running between the two large ponds with awkward bends. Apparently when the road was straightened, it was taken across another pond, not now in existence.”

Deed 129 of the Percy Woods Collection is dated September 24th 1812 and in it Mary Webb of Milford house leased to Robert Brettell Bale, rather surprisingly described as a mathematical instrument maker of the Poultry in the City of London, “the Forge lately converted into and used as a Mill for the manufactory of Crape plus the four ponds plus the Upper Hammers or Hammer Alehouse”. The words ‘lately converted’ might well be significant though they do not give us the date when the iron working ceased. Of some minor interest is another concession in the least to Bale – the right to cut ‘thirty two thousand of peat from the Pudmore, being part of the Waste or Common Lands within the Manor of Witley.” Pudmore Pond is on Ockley Common at approximately SU 907416.

In 1918 Bale gave up his lease which was reassigned to Archibald, John and Hugh Herron, described as merchants, of Mitre Court, Milk Street, Cheapside. When that lease’s term of years expired in 1824, Philip Barker Webb leased for 21 years to John and Hugh Herron, “Warren Lodge that building previously called the Forge but now converted int a Mill or Mills for the Manufactory of crapes … together with the four ponds called the Upper Hammer Pond, The Foul Pond, the Lower Hammer Pond and the New Pond”. One wonders whether the ‘Foul’ meant polluted or inhabited especially by birds. Could it refer to what is now called ‘Forked Pond’?

Straker’s reference to the straightening of the Turnpike Road affecting the Thursley site is illuminated by another agreement, No 132 of the Percy Woods Collection, dated April 16th 1828 between the Trustees of the Turnpike from Kingston to Sheetbridge near Petersfield and John Herron, “Silk manufacturer of Thursley”, to buy land called Pen Mead so that the road could go from the foot of Rodborough to the public house at the end of Road Lane. Pen Mead Copse is marked on my 2 1/2” OS map as lying south of the A3 at SU919401, and it was probably here that the road went across the pond which Straker mentions. The Trustees also agreed to take down the existing pub call the Half Moon which , rather oddly, was in the occupation of Mrs Frances Moon and rebuild it by the new road, together with stabling for 14 horses. They also agreed to dig a well and instal a pump, fuelhouse and privy. No doubt many people still remember the Half Moon beside the road at Thursley which ironically was demolished a few years ago for the widening of the Portsmouth Road, though the actual site of the pub has not been built upon. I wonder if the well is still there? Certainly “Silkmill Cottage” still occupies a key site between the Hammer Ponds and enshrines the memory of the Herrons who fished in these waters. Some Questions still remain, however. Why choose Thursley as a place to make crape and how was it made? Why such a remote location for silk making, an exotic fabric which presumably was imported from the East? Even though the main road from Portsmouth to London ran beside the mill, it still seems an odd location.

But what was the ’crape’ referred to in the deed of 1812? The American Fabrics Encyclopedia of Textiles (1972)defines it as “a lightweight fabric of silk, rayon, cotton, wool, synthetic or a combination of fibers. Characterised by a wrinkling surface obtained either by us of 1) hard twist yarns, 2) chemical treatment, 3) weave, 4) embossing.” The Handbook; of Textile Fibres by J Gordon Cllo (1963, Merrow Publishing Co., Watford) defies crape as yards with a very high twist, as many as 30 – 70 to the inch. “They are used for crepe fabrics and chiffon and for knitting into hosiery.” The first definition, therefore, points the search in the direction of the hosiery trade, a speciality of the Godalming area during the late 118th and 19th centuries. There is a yet third possibility – “the process of crowding a sheet of paper in a roll by means of a doctor”. A doctor, you will be relieved to hear , is a “thin plane or scraper of wood, metal or other hard substance placed along the entire length of a roll or cylinder to keep it free from paper, pulp, size, etc., and thus maintain a smooth, clean surface.” (‘The Dictionary of Paper’, American Pulp and Paper Association, 1965). This aspect of the manufacture of crepe puts the usage of Thursley Mill within the context of the paper industry of the Surry and Hants areas. Thursley Mill in its early 19th century phase could be seen as an interesting half-way house bridging two local industries, the hosiery trade and the making of paper.

Francis Haveron

Surrey Industrial History Group

18th August 1996