Early History of Watermills in Britain.

The mechanics of watermills were well-known by the Romans, but they usually preferred the muscle-power of slaves and animals to that of water, and are unlikely to have made much use of British rivers; certainly the Birmingham Plateau, which had no attractions for the town-builder, would have had no Roman watermills.

The Saxons brought the knowledge of crude watermills from the continent, and many of their settlements had a mill. In 1086, the Domesday Survey tells us there were 7,500 mills in the country - and these were all worked by water, for the windmill did not reach Britain until the end of the twelfth century. This number does not imply 7,500 separate buildings however, since for taxation purposes each pair of stones counted as a mill, and one building might house two or more pairs.

As there were about 10,000 parishes at the time of Domesday, a very rough guess might be that about half of them had a mill; some of them may well have been new erections by Norman lords to whom they were a source of income.

In our region there were the following

Tame 11 mills
Blythe 6 mills
Cole 1 mill
Rea 0 mills
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Total 18 mills

It seems strange that virtually no use was then being made of the Cole (25 miles long) and the Rea (17 miles), the only Cole mill being that at Coleshill, just above the Blythe confluence. But if the complaint of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicler be accepted, nothing taxable was overlooked by the Conqueror's survey teams - and a watermill could not be hidden !

Domesday Book may therefore be relied on in this instance. In view of the relation of mills to fisheries, it is of interest that none of the latter are recorded for the Tame-Blythe system. There was settlement along the Cole and Rea, but the people were few; Arden was too densely wooded and heavy-soiled to support a large population at that time. The lower Tame had been earlier and more densely settled, though the terms are relative in an area of late and sparse Saxon colonisation.

Of the Domesday mills on the Tame, that of Middleton was worth as much - 20 shillings - as the whole manor of Birmingham, which had no mill, unlike its neighbour Aston. Lea Marston and Kingsbury mills were worth about 10 shillings each, and the rest yielded two to three shillings, except for little Rushall, which paid only 4d. Some of these mill have survived, with rebuildings, almost to the present, while on other sites great factories maintain industrial continuity.