Cocking Foundry (also known as Chorley Iron Foundry) is an abandoned

iron foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

in the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the east. ...

of England. It was situated to the north of the village of

Cocking, West Sussex Cocking is a village, parish and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. The village is about three miles (5 km) south of Midhurst on the main A286 road to Chichester. In the 2001 census there were 190 households in ...

and was active for most of the 19th century. The foundry's output included

wheels A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be ...

for

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

s, some of which remain in use.

Location

The foundry was situated at on Costers Brook, a northward flowing tributary of the River Rother, about north of Cocking and south of

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town, parish and civil parish in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother inland from the English Channel, and north of the county town of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as ''Middeh ...

. The site is now on private property and few traces remain visible.

History

The earliest known reference to the foundry at Cocking is in the estate account books of

Uppark Uppark is a 17th-century house in South Harting, West Sussex, England. It is a Grade I listed building and a National Trust property. History The house, set high on the South Downs, was built for Ford Grey (1655—1701), the first Earl of ...

from 1818 which record payments to Robert Chorley of Cocking Foundry for the repair of the water supply. Chorley subsequently installed a new pump which was gear driven from an overshot metal wheel. There are some remains of the wheel and Chorley's name is cast in the nearby sluice gate. In December 1838, a lease was drawn up between the Cowdray Estate and "Robert Chorley of Midhurst, millwright" in respect of "two pieces of meadow or pasture land called Upper and Lower Twenty Acres, together with the coppice and pond belonging, in Cocking". The lease permitted the erection of "buildings on the said premises hereby demised for the purposes of his Trade of Millwright" and "one or more water wheels to be driven by the water of the said pond" and the construction of "convenient roads". On the 1840 tithe map of Cocking, a building marked "Mill" is shown at this location, alongside a representation of a water-wheel. The

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

map of 1875 marks the site as "Foundry Pond". This was still referred to as "Foundry Pond" as recently as 1953. In 1839, Charles "Carlino" Brown (1820–1901), the son of

Charles Armitage Brown Charles Armitage Brown (14 April 1787 – 5 June 1842) was a close friend of the poet John Keats, as well as a friend of artist Joseph Severn, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Walter Savage Landor and Edward John Trelawny. He was the fat ...

(close friend and biographer of the poet

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

), came to Midhurst to visit his Uncle William. While in Midhurst, he met Robert Chorley who agreed to employ and train him as a

millwright A millwright is a craftsperson or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites. The term ''millwright'' (also known as ''industrial mecha ...

and engineer. After serving a probationary term, Brown complained to his father that Chorley was no more than a simple millwright and that after his apprenticeship he would have to look for employment elsewhere in order to obtain the knowledge he required. By the end of the following year, the arrangement with Chorley was ended and Brown was engaged on designing a "machine for cutting tobacco". Brown was later to become a senior politician in New Zealand. The Iron Works stopped working in 1884 when Chorley's business ended in Midhurst.

Products

Water wheel for the Lurgashall Watermill

The majority of the foundry's output would have been the manufacture of agricultural implements etc. but the foundry also produced

for

s in the vicinity, including the mill at Cocking village. (This was removed for scrap during World War II as the mill had ceased commercial milling in 1918.) In the churchyard at Cocking there are several iron crosses which are also believed to have been manufactured at Cocking Foundry. The waterwheel at Bex Mill, just downstream from the foundry, is engraved to show that it was cast by "Moaze, Engineer & Millwright, of Midhurst, at Cocking Foundry"; no other references to Moaze have been found. Two waterwheels manufactured at the foundry remain in use in local museums. The

waterwheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

on the mill at the

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum The Weald and Downland Living Museum (formerly known as the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum until January 2017) is an open-air museum in Singleton, West Sussex. The museum is a registered charity. The museum covers , with over 50 historic ...

Singleton Singleton may refer to: Sciences, technology Mathematics * Singleton (mathematics), a set with exactly one element * Singleton field, used in conformal field theory Computing * Singleton pattern, a design pattern that allows only one instance ...

was made at the Cocking foundry for Costers Mill at West Lavington. After Costers Mill was closed, the wheel was moved to

Lurgashall Lurgashall is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, 6.5 km (4 ml) north west of Petworth, just inside the South Downs National Park. The population at the 2011 Census was 609. History The church has ...

and installed by millwright James Lee, of Midhurst, to replace the original wooden wheel. The wheel is in diameter and when the mill is grinding it rotates at about 6 r.p.m., with each turn needing about of water; it is an

overshot wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or bucket ...

consisting of 40 buckets. The mill was presented to the museum by the Leconfield Estate in 1973 and re-erected on its present site in 1977. At

Coultershaw Coultershaw Bridge is a rural community situated south of the town Petworth in West Sussex, England where the A285 road from Petworth to Chichester crosses the River Rother. Between 1792 and 1888, there were also wharves and a lock at Coulter ...

, where the River Rother is crossed by the A285, are situated the former Coultershaw Mill and the Coultershaw Beam Pump. The original Beam Pump was installed in 1872 on the instructions of the 3rd Earl of Egremont to improve the water supply to

Petworth House Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Sa ...

and the town of

Petworth Petworth is a small town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 road, A272 east–west road from Heathfield, East Sussex ...

. The pump is driven by an diameter

breastshot A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or bucket ...

waterwheel, cast at Cocking Foundry in the mid-19th century.

The foundry today

There remains very little evidence of the site of the foundry which is in privately owned woodland on the banks of Costers Brook. In October 1988, Sussex Mills Group organised a site visit. They found traces of the dried up pond and evidence of flow-control mechanism with a large quantity of stone debris in the vicinity.

References

Bibliography

* *{{cite book , last1= Cocking History Group , title=A Short History of Cocking , publisher=Studio Gallery Publications, location =

, year=2005, isbn=0-9542357-1-1 Foundries in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in West Sussex Industrial archaeological sites in England 1884 disestablishments in England