The River Rea.

There was in the eighteenth century a remarkable concentration of mills on the Rea, a river always noted for its variability. In 1526 Edward de Birmingham allowed his tenants to take their corn to Thomas Holte's mill at Saltley. He thus forewent his milling soke through necessity, because his own mill was often out of use through lack of water.

Heath Mill was placed at the downstream end of Birmingham's stretch of the Rea, a short one, so that this ponding of the river would not raise the level too much at the Deritend ford and bridge upstream, but even so the crossing was often impassable, while the mill for lack of reserve would be idle soon after floods.

When in 1540 Holte rebuilt Saltley and added Duddeston Mill, the Steward of the King, then lord of Birmingham, brought an action against him, but Holte won the case, being able to prove that Heath Mill had long been inadequate for the town's requirements, so that he could pose as a public benefactor while making a handsome addition to his income.

All the Reaside manors had their mills on or near it. The earliest recorded is that of Kings Norton, in 1165. There were two in Northfield in 1291. It is notable that the manor houses, such as Hazelwell, Moor Green, and Edgbaston Halls, were built up on the pleasant sides of the valley, and the mills of necessity in the marsh and mist of the often-flooded meadows. It was said that watermillers were morose and lonely men, from years of living in damp valleys, whereas windmillers were brisk and cheerful !

In 1553 there were three watermills in Birmingham. These were Heath Mill, Malt Mill which was fed by the manor house moat stream, and a corn mill supplied partly by the moat and partly by a new leat cut from the Rea. The conversions and new erections for industrial purposes already noted on the Tame were paralleled on its tributary, but as would be expected thus far from the ironstone workings. there were no bloom smithies. Fulling and blade mills were at work on the Edgbaston sites during the C16th and C17th, and downstream the processes of slitting, rolling and hammering iron were all powered by Rea water. Digbeth Blade Mill, said to have turned out 15,000 blades for Parliament, was burnt by Prince Rupert in 1643, but soon rebuilt. Five years later Speedwell had been converted to blade grinding, and in 1672 Pebble Mill, powered by Bourn Brook, changed from fulling to blades and at about the same time Hawkesley also became a blade mill.

Because of the Rea's steeper gradient, the races tended to be shorter and the mills close to the river, so that they suffered from the frequent floods which 'tailed' the wheels and caused damage. The necessary river works were not carried out until the mills were in decline, and then to their detriment.

In 1698 Sampson Lloyd came to Birmingham and took over the corn mill, using the power both for grist-milling and for slitting. The mills and the family prospered together. In 1741 there was a spinning mill in Birmingham, and in 1760 the Moat House, formerly the manor Hall, was in use as a thread mill, having been a blade mill since 1700. The Rea was so much altered in the quest for power at this time that William Hutton noted having come upon two channels of the river close together and yet flowing in opposite directions.

Because their water supply problems were so acute, the Rea Valley millers were most hostile to the proposal to construct the Worcester Canal; they contrived, with other objectors, to have the Bill twice rejected, and allowed it to pass in 1791 only when the Company had undertaken to build several large reservoirs to compensate mill-owners for any loss of water to the canal. These included Wychall and Lifford Reservoirs. Harborne Reservoir was made in 1804 to provide compensation water for Bourn Brook mills affected by the Dudley Canal branch to Selly Oak. Harborne Mill was then only ten years old, a steel-rolling mill on an ancient site. It used a 15-foot overshot or breast wheel. Wychall was a steel-rolling mill also, and flood-water from its great pool was passed on to the canal by a feeder built by the Company. Railway buildings affected both Northfield and Hawkesley Mills. After the disastrous Rea floods of 1852, drastic straightening and deepening of the channel was begun, an operation which has proceeded by stages to the present. Duddeston millweir was demolished at once, thus removing an obstacle to drainage which had produced a mile-long pool of Birmingham's raw sewage in recent years. Speedwell Mill was damaged in the later floods, and went out of use in the 60's; it had been engaged in wire-drawing, and latterly in rolling and tube manufacture.

Several of the upper millsites have continued in use. Thus Hurst Mill, a chemical plant manufactory; Sherborne, now Kings Norton Paper Mills; Lifford, a chemical works, whose wastes cover the actual mill-site; Hazelwell, a Gun Barrel Mill in the 80's, now an India Rubber factory; and Dogpool Mill, still so called, making brass and copper tubes in buildings surrounding the pool-site. The Edgbaston mills survived, though not in use since the early 1880's, into this century, not now only one building of Over Mill, and the house of Edgbaston Mill, remain. A museum stands on the site of Pebble Mill, and the great hollow of its pool - drained in 1883 because of its popularity for suicides - is now being built upon. Of the lower mills even the sites are difficult to establish, though street-names are of some assistance.