Hanwell: Mills

A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1962.

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'Hanwell: Mills', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington, (London, 1962) pp. 226. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol3/p226 [accessed 28 March 2024]

MILLS.

There was a mill in the manor of Hanwell in 1086. (fn. 1) No other references to a water-mill in the parish have been found, though a rental of Greenford manor (including Hanwell) for the early 13th century lists two men whose names suggest that they were millers. (fn. 2) It is not impossible that the Domesday mill was in New Brentford, which later became a separate manor. (fn. 3)

In 1339 it was said that the Abbot of Westminster between 1246 and 1258 had built a windmill in Hanwell which later abbots had removed. (fn. 4) The small remnant of an open field called Mill Hill Field lay in the early 19th century on the west side of Cuckoo Lane (now Greenford Avenue). (fn. 5) This site, on the crest of a hill, seems a likely one for the medieval windmill. No records of later mills in the parish have been found, though the mills in Windmill Lane, across the Brent in Norwood parish, have sometimes been spoken of as if they were in Hanwell. (fn. 6)

Footnotes

  • 1. Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i. 128b.
  • 2. B.M. Add. Ch. 8139.
  • 3. See p. 224.
  • 4. Public Works in Medieval Law, ii (Selden Soc. xl), 6-7; and cf. V.C.H. Lond. i. 455.
  • 5. M.R.O., Hanwell Incl. Award.
  • 6. e.g. Lond. and Mdx. Note Bk. ed. Phillimore, 139.