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Sele Mill is a late 19th-century mill building in
accessed 24 June 2015
Subscription or UK public library membership required. and the facility was used for grinding corn again. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1890 and was rebuilt. The 18th century miller's house survived the fire.
Although water power is no longer used at the site, there is a 20th-century labyrinth weir on the River Beane designed to produce a head of water for the
Sele Mill is a late 19th-century mill building in Hertford
Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census.
The town grew around a ford on the River Lea ...
, England. It has been converted into apartments.
A blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
on the building () commemorates an earlier mill on the site, the country's first paper mill
A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...
.
History
For most of its history, the mill used the power of theRiver Beane
The River Beane is a short river in the county of Hertfordshire, England. A tributary of the River Lea, it rises to the south-west of Sandon in the hills northeast of Stevenage and joins the Lea at Hartham Common in Hertford.
Watermills
In ...
, a chalk stream
Chalk streams are rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Since chalk is permeable, water percolates easily through the ground to the water table and chalk streams therefore receive little surface runoff. As a result, t ...
which joins the River Lea at Hertford.
A watermill on this site is mentioned in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
of 1086 when it was valued at 2 shillings. Sele at this time was a separate manor from Hertford. Its other resources included ploughland and meadow, but it appears to appears to have been a very small settlement: the recorded population was two households.
In the late 15th century it was converted into a paper mill by an entrepreneur called John Tate. As far as is known, this was the first paper mill in the country. It appears to have gone out of production around 1500,Richard L. Hills, ‘Tate, John (c.1448–1507/8)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200accessed 24 June 2015
Subscription or UK public library membership required. and the facility was used for grinding corn again. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1890 and was rebuilt. The 18th century miller's house survived the fire.
Mill race
Although water power is no longer used at the site, there is a 20th-century labyrinth weir on the River Beane designed to produce a head of water for the mill race
A mill race, millrace or millrun, mill lade (Scotland) or mill leat (Southwest England) is the current of water that turns a water wheel, or the channel (sluice) conducting water to or from a water wheel. Compared with the broad waters of a mi ...
.
There is a programme of works to improve the ecological health of the river and it has been proposed to modify the weir which in its current state poses a barrier to fish migration
Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...
.
See also
*Horns Mill, Hertford
Horns Mill is an area and suburb of south Hertford, Hertfordshire.
History
Horn's Mill was at the foot of Bullock's Lane. The mill ground corn, crushed oil seeds and ground bones for fertiliser. Production ceased in the late nineteenth century an ...
References
{{coords, 51.7977, -0.0880, display=title Buildings and structures in Hertford Papermaking in the United Kingdom Watermills in Hertfordshire Watermills mentioned in the Domesday Book Weirs on the River Beane