Mills

Water mills were an essential part of the farming ecology; farmers took the grain they had harvested and threshed to the nearest mill, where the miller ground it into flour or meal, taking his ‘miller’s toll’. Domesday lists ‘six mills worth forty shillings’ in Mene Manor and one in Mene Ecclesia.

Four were on the River Meon: South Mill near its source, Frogmore Mill close to the village, and ‘Shutt Mills’, two of them, at Drayton. Three more were located in what are today Froxfield and Sheet. As the textile industry in Petersfield grew, new fulling mills were built on the river Rother and the rental survey of 1567 shows that there were now two at Oakshott, one of them a fulling mill, and two more fulling mills at Foxcombe. One of Shutt/Drayton Mills was later a saw-mill. The sketch map below was found at the back of the 1567 Rental of East Meon and shows the layout of Ashford Mill.

The note is headed ‘Asshleford & Forcombe’ and records: “Assheford set all over, Forcombe John Coper Robert Sharp, Aldersnape set over…”On the map can be made out: “myle [mill] pond, ryver, the lug wall”.