The lost village of

Tide MiLLS

The Mill came first...

A Tidal Mill was built at Tide Mills in 1761 but last worked in 1883, 137 years ago. It was demolished in 1901, but was outlived by the village that grew up around it.

The Mill needed a strong workforce. Barges would come right up to the Mill to load the corn and wheat on and off. This was all done by hand. It was hard work.

At first there were a few cottages built at the same time as the Mill, but most of the workers would have been local men (and women to darn the flour sacks).

Question Do you think women should have been allowed to build the mill too?

In the early days, the Mill was a smaller operation, and only had 5 pairs of grinding stones. This didn’t stop hungry English troops in 1795, when during the war with Napoleon, they stole 200 sacks of flour from the Mill! They were quickly caught and executed!

William Catt and the birth of a village

In 1808 a man named William Catt took over Tide Mills and made it much bigger. He needed more workers so he created a village right by the mill for them to live in. William Catt lived in the biggest and grandest house in the village – Mill House.

William Catt was fascinated by exotic fruit and built a massive greenhouse where he grew figs and pineapples. He dedicated a lot of time to growing pineapples as they were hard to grow and rare. He wanted to be the best.

Catt also grew pear trees up the side of his house and the pears were known as “William Pears” (but only by the locals!). He encouraged the villagers to grow their own fruit and veg too – and you can still see evidence of some of the fruit trees at Tide Mills now!

Learn more If only William Catt had known how easy it can be to grow your own pineapple! Watch this video and try it out yourself... [YouTube]

Catt was a clever man and turned the Mill into a vast industrial complex. He built a windmill on top of the Mill to move the sacks of grain and flour up and down between floors. At the same time, many working class men would be doing extremely hard physical work every single day to keep the mill going – and they wouldn’t have been paid much.

Fair or harsh...?

Question Look at the information below about how William Catt treated his workers and villagers. Do you think he was fair or harsh?

He traded coal as well as flour, but built a high wall around the coal yard to stop the villagers stealing
He built walls around the village and set curfews - the gates were locked every night at 10.10pm
On one occasion, some villagers arrived back 10 minutes late from the pub. He stopped their beer tokens and banned them from leaving the village for a month!

Daily life in the village

When the Mill existed, life in the village was tough. Hover or tap on each of the cards to discover more about life at Tide Mills…

The working day for the villagers would fit with the times of the tides – so was constantly changing! The Mill would have worked 16-20 hours a day.

The men would have worked in the mill, whilst some women darned the flour sacks and others tried to keep the cottages clean and tidy, gather enough food and water to cook and feed their family.

Fish could be found for food on the mud flat. The villagers used to spear them with a rounded hook on the end of a pole.

An outhouse contained the copper (for boiling and washing clothes), which the women of the village used. People had to take their turn and share. In another small outhouse there was the village mangle (a clothes drying machine). A mangle consisted of 2 rollers and a heavy iron wheel, which women would turn to squeeze the clothes dry. It was extremely noisy.

Some villagers had chickens for eggs (and to eat).

There was no rubbish collection, so rubbish was all thrown into big pits and burnt – smelly!

There was no electricity and all lighting was with oil lamps

There was no running water in the village. Water was collected from a well near the old Bishopstone Halt station as any closer to the sea would have made the water too brackish (an old word for salty!). The villagers would also catch and store as much rainwater as they could.

There were no toilets. Instead there were just big deep holes, or wee and poo went straight into the sea!

There were some large ovens at the back of the Mill which the millers would use to make their own bread. This tradition was kept up for many years – possibly right up until the mill closed.

Question How different was life in the village at Tide Mills to your life now? Do you think you would have been able to live there without the things we take for granted now, like electricity, running water and toilets?

In 1815, a ship travelling from Malta to London was wrecked in Seaford Bay. Most of the ship's cargo was stolen by local people, and a few weeks later a sale was held at Tide Mills of officially recovered items from the wreck. The ship's owners were represented at the sale by William Catt - he was a busy businessman indeed!

Shipwrecks and smuggling

Tide Mills has seen lots of shipwrecks over the years. Lots of bits of ships and their cargo were washed up on the beach and the villagers collected big wooden masts to hold up some of the barns and outhouses in the Village. Smaller bits of wood were collected and burnt for heating or cooking.

It was common for bamboo to be used to protect a ship’s cargo and ships would often dump it in the sea on the way out of the port at Newhaven. The beach at Tide Mills was sometimes littered with bamboo as a result!

Question What sort of rubbish do you think you might find on the beach at Tide Mills now? Where does it come from, and who cleans it up?

1864

Trains and Steam Power

In 1864 the railway network extended to Seaford and a siding was laid right through Tide Mills between the Mill and the Cottages. Think of all that noise and steam and pollution right by your house!

The railway made it easier and cheaper for farmers to send their grain to big cities such as London and ultimately played a large part in the closure of the mill.

1864

1875

A Big Storm

A big storm and flood in 1875 caused a great deal of damage to the mill, including filling much of the mill pond with stones from the beach. Whilst the Mill did carry on working after this, it never returned to its full capacity.

1875

1883

The Mill Closes

The way people lived changed a lot over the life of Tide Mills, especially when the Mill stopped working for good in 1883. The Mill, which provided work for so many men, had stopped and the beating heart of the village fell silent. The Mill buildings were converted and used as warehouses where some of the men continued to work.

1883

The villagers adapt

People still lived in the cottages at Tide Mills but needed to find other work. Some worked in the fields surrounding Tide Mills or at the Docks in Newhaven, but all had to find other local work to make ends meet.

Slowly things like the school, blacksmith and carpenters disappeared from the village but the people stayed surviving the best they could. There was a great community feeling and everybody helped each other.

Mr Davis, who was born in the village in 1893, remembers: “The people of Tidemills were a kindly folk and were always helping one another”.

Question Do you know all your neighbours? Do you live in a community?

The early 1900s

Many years later residents of Tide Mills remember a man from Newhaven called the “snowball man” who used to come from Newhaven with great white bundle on his back filled with clothes. He would spread his sheet across the road and the villagers would gather round to buy his wares.

Evidence Listen to what two residents, Mr Davis and Mrs Baker, had to say about life in Tide Mills in the early twentieth century (the 1900s)

Mr Davis remembers: “In 1906 we thought it was a good idea to have a stall close to the sea wall with mineral waters, cigarettes, etc, as so many people liked to walk from Seaford to the East pier, after which they would cross the old bridge at the west end of the creek, continue along the river bank, through the Tidemills and so back to Seaford. Trade was quite good, especially with home made sweets. The sea wall was then about 16ft high on the shore side. There is probably about 6ft of beach over it now.”

Mrs Baker who was born in the village in 1906 said : “life at Tidemill, though it sounds dull to most people was a very, very happy place. At night, we would sleep in our bathing suits and go over for a swim early in the Summer mornings …”

Radio at Tide Mills

In 1904, one of the first radio stations (a Marconi Radio Station) was built on the beach at Tide Mills to help guide and track ships across the English Channel. It had a HUGE mast, which was struck by lightning in 1908, killing the operator.

Learn more Click to watch this short video to learn about Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of radio communication [Youtube]

World War 1

A Seaplane Station base was built on the beach in 1917. Things got very busy in Tide Mills at this time. Lots of army traffic and soldiers, noise and two big hangers for the planes were built on the beach.

Mr Davis remembers another thing : “In the years of the 14/18 war holiday huts begun to appear on the beach. These were usually railway carriages converted and were always occupied during the summer months.”

Between the wars

Lots happened at Tide Mills between World War 1 and World War 2. The 1920s brought a new lease of life to the village as Chailey Heritage built a hospital on the beach for young boys with disabilities, and a stables was built to rehabilitate lame race horses.

Chailey Heritage Marine Hospital

Tide Mills became home to hundreds of disabled young boys in the 1920s and 30s

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David Dale's Racing Stables

At the same time, Tide Mills was home to a pioneering stables for the recovery of lame race horses

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The stable complex provided some work for some of the remaining villagers, and the hospital meant that Tide Mills was a busy place, full of people. That said, the children in the village weren’t allowed to mix with the boys from the hospital. Mrs Powell, the Matron, wouldn’t allow it!

The beginning of the end

In 1936, a petition to evict the villagers from Tide Mills was created. Some historians believe that Matron Powell might have had a hand in this, as she thought their homes were no longer fit to live in.

In 1937, a headline in the Daily Mail read ‘The Hamlet of Horror’, and described the squalor in which residents lived because of the complete lack of running water, sewage facilities and electricity. It was not very nice about Tide Mills village.

Later that year Seaford council deemed the village of Tide Mills as unfit for habitation and issued an eviction order giving the residents nine months to move out. Everyone at Tide Mills, including Chailey Marine Hospital, was evicted.

Evidence Take a look at the original article from the Daily Mail and see how it described the village of Tide Mills

Question How would you feel about being evicted from your house?

But the villagers adapted once again and some stayed… they didn’t want to leave!

The Thompson Family, residents of Tide Mills

Original photo of the Thompson Family, residents of Tide Mills

World War 2

Despite the eviction order there were still 13 families living in Tide Mills at the beginning of WW2 in 1939. The villagers still loved their home and it seems it was a generally happy place to live. Some villagers hung on until they were forcibly removed in under 24 hours in 1940.

Many defences were built in Tide Mills to try and stop a German invasion and troops used of all the remaining buildings in the village for training, damaging them beyond repair.

The buildings to the south of the mill creek were demolished to provide a clear field of fire out to sea. Any other buildings that survived beyond the end of the war were pulled down in 1946/7, with only a few walls left standing!

Question Where in the world are people being forced from their homes today?

The last residents

Only one villager remained into the Second World War – William Christopher Stanley Tubb (known as Stan!).

This was because he convinced the army who took over the village that he knew the area and special tides very well and could help them defend themselves against the threat of invasion by the Germans.

Question Do you think Stan was brave, or did he just want to stay in the village?

Learn MoreEvidence Listen to Stanley Tubb talking about his memories of Tide Mills and his time there on BBC Radio Sussex in 1977.

From the end of WW2 in 1945 until now, Tide Mills has slowly been reclaimed by nature. The only things that remain the same are memories and the sound of the waves.

During this time, a whole host of new residents – including rare birds and plants, have moved in to make Tide Mills their home.