WATERMILLS

From medieval times the multiple courses of Rea and Aston Brook were used as feeders for fishponds and millpools. Deritend Mill, property of the Holtes, lay 700 yards downstream from the manor house. In 1540 its use by Birmingham folk brought complaint and suit by the Crown Steward then administering that manor: but Edward Holte was able to prove that Birmingham's mills had often been inadequate for its needs, and that his grinding corn for these neighbours had been agreed to by Edward de Birmingham, last of his line.

Holte's mill was rebuilt in the 1570s, one building with three pairs of stones. There is no record of its use for industrial purposes, though this is likely when so many local mills had been converted, until 1744. James Farmer then rented the premises for metal-rolling, gun-barrel boring, and the grinding of swords and edge-tools. It was perhaps in his time that the water supply was improved: the boundary brook which ran beside Saltley Road was diverted southward to fill a large pool, supplementing the Rea supply.

Farmer's partner and successor, the Quaker Samuel Galton, may have built the last mill on the site: that large three-storey building remained in use until 1888, having reverted to corn-grinding in 1829 and become a steampowered sawmill later. Waterpower was not used after the floods of 1852 had necessitated removal of the Rea weir. The infilled poolsite has been railway land since the mill closed.

A fulling mill was at work in Nechells during Tudor times, probably at the site in Nechells Park. Thimble Mill, then called Brodemore (Broad Moor) Mill, existed in 1532. Its power came from leat and pool fed by Aston Brook. By 1749 the premises had been rebuilt or converted for steel-rolling: the name was Thimble Mill, nine years later. The mill was rebuilt a short way downstream before 1833, so that the pool could be enlarged and the 'head' or fall of water at the wheels made greater. The lane then ran along the milldam. From 1863 until 1918 Thimble Mill was a gun-barrel manufactory, but steam replaced waterpower when the water-rights were sold during the Aston Brook improvements of 1879-80. The railway branch to Windsor Street was laid across the poolbed four years later.

Other mills on Aston Brook (which fed seven altogether) were Steel's and Benton's. The former stood on the Aston bank at Thimble Mill Lane crossing. Benton's Mill, also known as Park Mill, had two pools: the larger was on the Brook, and Pool Lane (Holborn Hill) crossed on its dam, the other on a leat alongside. A blade mill is shown at the site on Beighton's map of 1725. The mill was rebuilt by Richard Benton, whose family farmed nearly half of Nechells, and was making edge tools in 1774. It was a rolling mill in 1829-30, and made sand-paper during later decades.

In 1900 the buildings, without power for eight years after the water rights had been sold to permit brook improvement, were incorporated in Plume Works, and demolished in 1941. Nechells Park Mill, not to be confused with Benton's Park Mill above, had a large pool on a channel from the Rea which may have been a meander course. its buildings stood at the north end of the small recreation ground which now covers part of the poolbed.

The first certain reference to this site is that of 1693, when there was a blade-mill thereat. The mill and forge built for metal slitting in 1747 with an enlarged pool were still producing edge tools until 1863, and the pool survived until 1905. There are no known windmill sites in Deritend or Nechells.

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