Mills in the Titchfield Hundred

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Great Funtley Mill (SU556090)

This mill, the most northerly in the ancient parish was presumably the mill on Ranulf Flamme's Funtley holding in 1086, worth 12s. 6d (62½p). and its ownership descended with the Great Funtley estate until recent times. It was a corn mill until the early twentieth century and was formerly occupied by the Tappenden family, who ran the Chesapeake Mill in Wickham. There is not much to see now, but with help, the signs are still there. The site is described in Water and Wind Mills in Hampshire.

Little Funtley Mill (SU553087)

This was presumably the mill on Count Alan's Funtley holding in 1086, worth lOs. (5Op) and its ownership descended with the estate called at different times Funtley Furstbury, Funtley Pagham and Little Funtley until the seventeenth century. The mill site is straddled by River lane which leads to Funtley Village, its pond immediately to the north, can still be seen, but the mill buildings on the south side have gone. By 1350 the mill, then in the hands of Thomas le Wayte of Funtley Furstbury, was a fulling-mill, and its continued use for fulling cloth until the sixteenth century is suggested by John Wayte of Segensworth's occupation of wool merchant in 1527.

Titchfield (or Funtley) Iron Mill (SU550082)

This mill seems to have been built on a virgin site by the third Earl of Southampton in 1603-5; it was marked as "Iron Myll on the 1610 Map. Its construction seems to have been one of the projects by which the Earl hoped to restore his fortunes after his release from the Tower of London. In the 18c. Henry Cort developed new water powered rolling techniques for making profiled iron bar such as railway lines, so every last drop was gathered to power tilt hammers and a 12.5 foot wheel. The site is discussed in Water and Wind Mills in Hampshire and in Hampshire Industrial Archaeology.
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Segensworth Mill (SU542071)

There was a mill on Hugh de Port's estate at Segensworth in 1086, worth 20s., but is presumed to have fallen into disrepair before 1350 since it is not mentioned in a dispute of that year between Thomas le Wayte and the Abbot of Titchfield about the effect of the tail-leat of Little Funtley Mill on the Abbot's meadows. The site cannot be identified and was perhaps obliterated by the construction of the Southampton line railway embankment.

Titchfield Mill (SU542061)

The village corn-mill at Titchfield is probably of great antiquity. Its site would seem to be the only possible location for the "King's Mill", whose mill-dyke (presumably the head-leat) is mentioned in the bounds of a meadow at Segensworth in 982 AD. Titchfield was, of course, a royal manor, part of the estates of Edward the Confessor before the Norman Conquest. The mill was mentioned in Domesday Book in 1086, worth 20s. In the Middle Ages it appears frequently in the records of Titchfield Abbey, though it in fact formed part of the small estate then held in Titchfield by the clerks of St. Elizabeth, Winchester. 
The buildings and a wheel are shown very clearly in the 1610 map. The present building with its two iron wheels dates from 1830, and incorporates stone from the Place House site in its foundation. The mill was sold during the break-up of the Delmé estate in 1919, and was bought by the Titchfield Abbey Co-operative Society, which, as Titchfield Mills Ltd., continues to sell feedstuffs and other agricultural requisites. Milling was discontinued in the 1950's. It is now a licensed restaurant but certain parts of the machinery (the water wheels are 21c.) can be seen standing now quite still. The mill is described in Water and Wind Mills in Hampshire.

Hubbard's Mill (SU543042)

This was probably the mill on Count Alan's estate in Crofton in 1086, worth 12s. 6d (62'/2p). Crofton Mill appears frequently in the medieval records of Titchfield Abbey: for instance, certain tenants were required to take their corn to Crofton Mill. The buildings are marked, though not named, on the 1610 map, and the mill itself is shown on a number of eighteenth and nineteenth century maps, variously called Hubbards, Hob, Hobboday and Hubbardsmiths Mill (this last name may indicate that at some point metal-working took place on the site). The site seems to have been only a farm in the nineteenth century and by even the farm is gone. The closing of the tidal estuary in 1611 may have totally altered the environs of this, the lowest mill on the Meon. It is not clear whether the mill was powered by a leat from the main stream; by the tide; or by the rivulet which runs westwards from Crofton into the Meon. 		Map site
Water Mill on Titchfield Common

In the fourteenth century Titchfield Abbey built a water-mill at Fleet End on the western edge of Titchfield Common, below the huge dam of its fishpond there, now long disused. The rectangular site of the mill can still be discerned in the woodland next to the footpath (SU509059). The mill soon fell into disrepair, probably as a result of the Black Death.

There were at least two windmills in Titchfield parish in the late eighteenth century: a windmill at Peel Common east of Crofton and another on Titchfield Common near the present Sir Joseph Paxton public house. The windmill on the Common disappeared in the nineteenth century, perhaps as a result of the enclosure; but the tower on Peel Common was still standing in the 1920's. Water-driven farm machinery of the nineteenth century has recently been identified at Brownwich Farm.

THS