The River Bewl is a tributary of the

River Teise The River Teise ( , ) is a tributary of the River Medway in Kent, England. Course The source of the Teise is in Dunorlan Park in Tunbridge Wells. From there the river flows eastwards past Bayham Abbey and then through Lamberhurst. downstre ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Its headwaters are in the High Weald, in Sussex between

Lamberhurst Lamberhurst ( is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. The parish contains the hamlets of The Down and Hook Green. At the 2001 Census it had a population of 1,491, increasing to 1,706 at the 2011 Census. ...

, Wadhurst and

Flimwell Flimwell is a village in the civil parish of Ticehurst, in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. It is located close to the border with Kent at the junction of the A21 road with the A268 and the B2087. The village is situated in an Area ...

. The valley is deeply incised into Tunbridge Wells red sandstone, with a base of alluvium on Wadhurst clay. Between 1973 and 1975, a was built across the Bewl valley, cutting off the headwaters. This formed

Bewl Water Bewl Water is a reservoir in the valley of the River Bewl, straddling the boundary between Kent and East Sussex in England. It is about south of Lamberhurst, Kent. The reservoir was part of a project to increase supplies of water in the a ...

, a , with a surface area of . In times of good flow, water is extracted from the River Medway at

Yalding Yalding is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Maidstone in Kent, England. The village is situated south west of Maidstone at a point where the Rivers Teise and Beult join the River Medway. At the 2001 census, the parish, which incl ...

and pumped through pipes into Bewl Water, where it is stored for times of heavy water demand. The River Bewl passes under the A21 road and by

Scotney Castle Scotney Castle is an English country house with formal garden A formal garden is a garden with a clear structure, geometric shapes and in most cases a symmetrical layout. Its origin goes back to the gardens which are located in the desert are ...

. At

Finchcocks Finchcocks is an early Georgian manor house in Goudhurst, Kent. For 45 years it housed a large, visitor-friendly museum of historical keyboard instruments, displaying a collection of harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, square pianos, organs ...

it enters the River Teise.

Watermills

The River Bewl and its tributaries powered a number of

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. From source to mouth they were:-

Dunsters Mill, Ticehurst

TQ 689 323 The site of this watermill now lies in the middle of Bewl Water. It was one of those very rare watermills that was an overdrift mill, with the millstones driven from above. This arrangement is more commonly found in

windmills A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some par ...

. When Bewl Water was built, the fourteenth century Mill House was dismantled and re-erected at Three Legged Cross, Wadhurst. The overshot waterwheel was some diameter by wide and was carried on a wooden axle. it drove a cast iron pit wheel diameter with 112 wooden cogs. A square cast iron layshaft was driven which powered at least two pairs of millstones.BBC
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Chingley Forge, Goudhurst

TQ 682 335 The site of this ancient forge mill is now covered by the dam of Bewl Water. Chingley forge was built sometime between 1574 and 1589, when Richard Ballard was the tenant of Thomas Darell. Edward Pelham and James Thatcher bought the forge c.1595. In 1637 the forge was leased to Henry Darell. The forge seems to have been disused in 1653 and 1664, but was at work in 1717, producing 46 tons of iron in that year. It was marked on Budgen's map of 1724 and in 1726 the tenant was John Legas. The dam has been recorded as long.
Iron furnaces

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/ref>Wealden Iron Research Group
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Chingley Furnace, Goudhurst

TQ 684 327 The site of this ancient blast furnace is now covered by the dam of Bewl Water. It was in the Culpeper family in the sixteenth century, Thomas Collepepper holding lands in Chingley in

fief A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form ...

from Henry VIII in 1544. The land had formerly been in the ownership of the Abbey of Boxley, which had been dissolved. The furnace was built between 1558 and 1565. In 1574 it was in the possession of Thomas Darell and the tenant was Thomas Dyke. It was sold by Edward Culpeper in 1595. In 1597 Thomas Dyke of

Pembury Pembury is a large village in Kent, in the south east of England, with a population of 6,128 at the 2011 Census. It lies just to the north-east of Royal Tunbridge Wells. The village centre, including the village green and High Street area is a ...

leased Chingley Furnace to Richard Ballard of Wadhurst, and his sons Thomas and Richard. The forge was powered by an undershot waterwheel. The sites were excavated in 1968/9 by the Wealden Iron Research Group. There is evidence that Chingley Forge was a hammer mill at some time, possibly as early as the first half of the thirteenth century. The dam was recorded as long and high. When the site was excavated in 1970, the remains of an overshot waterwheel diameter and wide were found.

Watermills

Dunsters Mill, Ticehurst

Chingley Forge, Goudhurst

Chingley Furnace, Goudhurst

References

See also