Swalwell mill

HER Number

697

District

Gateshead

Site Name

Swalwell mill

Place

Swalwell

Map Sheet

NZ26SW

Class

Industrial

Site Type: Broad

Power Generation Site

Site Type: Specific

Watermill

General Period

MEDIEVAL

Specific Period

Medieval 1066 to 1540

Form of Evidence

Documentary Evidence

Description

The earliest explicit reference to a mill at Swalwell is in Hatfield's Survey (c.1382), when it was held communally by the tenants. As William Swalwell held the milldam it must be assumed to have been a watermill. But note that Boldon Buke (1183 survey of land belonging to the Bishop of Durham, Hugh du Puiset) records a mill under the heading of Whickham, and this may have referred to Swalwell. The Parliamentary Survey of 1647 lists "...a Water Corn Milne...called... Swalwell Milne...now quite decayed and fallen to the ground", as the only mill in the manor of Whickham. Bourn noted the existence of a watermill in the early 19th century.

Easting

420400

Northing

562400

Grid Reference

NZ420400562400

Sources

<< HER 697 >> W. Greenwell, ed. 1852, Boldon Buke, Surtees Society, 25, p. 67
W. Greenwell, ed. 1856, Bishop Hatfield's Survey, Surtees Society, 32, p. 93
D.A. Kirby, ed. 1972, Parliamentary Surveys of the Bishopric of Durham, Surtees Society, II 185, pp. 81-2
1770, Whickham and Swalwell Low Ground, belonging to Sir James Clavering, BP/3/165 -Gateshead Library Local Studies
W. Bourn, 1893, Whickham Parish, p. 113
R. Surtees, 1820, History of...Durham, II, p. 247; Eric Clavering and Alan Rounding, 1995, Early Tyneside Industrialism: The lower Derwent and Blaydon Burn Valleys 1550-1700, Archaeologia Aeliana, Series 5, Vol XXIII, page 255