Mills Then and Now

The 1852 watercolour entitled "A Chalford Mill" by Edward Smith, and a photograph of the same view in 2025. 

Some sources (such as "Wool & Water The Gloucestershire Woollen Industry And Its Mills" by Jennifer Tann - ISBN 978-0-7524-6215-8) believe the watercolour depicts les Mill in Chalford. This was a small pre-industrial revolution 17th century mill built of Cotswold stone and was typical of the local mills of the era. Thrupp Mill would probably have looked like this in the first quarter of the 19th century when it was operating as a fulling mill. Iles Mill is just up the valley from Brimscombe and Thrupp. It has been significantly altered in the intervening years and there is no longer a mill race beside it.