I intimated in yesterday’s blog that the Medieval and later prosperity of Bow was on account of it being at the centre of a cottage industry founded on the milling of grain for use in baking and distilling (and up until the Reformation in the post-Medieval period controlled by Stratford Langthorne Abbey).

Readers may be interested to know that milling continued in Bow right up until the last century.  Also that one – eighteenth-century – tidal mill, the House Mill, on Three Mill Island, has recently been restored as a working museum, and is open to the public every Sunday from May to October.   The House Mill was bought by the Huguenot Peter Lefevre in 1727, and rebuilt by his partner Daniel Bisson in 1776.

Three Mill Island

House Mill

Custom House

Clock Tower

Clock Mill

Clock Mill from downstream

Cartouche on House Mill bearing initials of Daniel Bisson

Three Mills Green, with Abbey Mills Pumping Station in the background