Crawley Old Town: TWENTY FIVE PICTURES: Ifield Water Mill

Ifield Water Mill is a 19th-century weatherboarded watermill built on the site of an earlier, smaller flour mill, which itself replaced an iron forge—one of many in the Crawley area—it fell into disuse in the 1930s. The local council, which acquired the land for housing development in the 1970s, leased the mill to local enthusiasts, who restored it to working order. The mill and an associated house are listed buildings, and there is also a cottage (not listed) on the site.

The original mill fell into disuse in the 1810s after London-based businessman Abraham Goldsmid bought it in 1809. It lay unused for eight years until Thomas Durrant, a miller from nearby Merstham, bought it for £1,200 in 1817. Durrant was the first owner who also acted as miller, and under his ownership the mill was completely rebuilt.

The 1683 building was demolished and the structure which stands today was built in its place. A decorative stone tablet with the date 1683 and the initials of Thomas Middleton and his wife Mary was salvaged and mounted on the exterior. Thomas Durrant spent £3,500 on construction.

The water supply began to fail as the brook's flow became weaker, and in 1848 the mill pond was cut in half by the building of the railway line to Horsham. This originally crossed it on a bridge, but an embankment soon replaced it. Also, in 1837, a competing windmill had been built near the centre of the village, and two other millers were recorded in Ifield parish by 1821. Gradual decline continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; the mill passed through many owners, and even one long-established family of owner-millers, the Hardings, struggled. A steam engine driven by a waterwheel had been installed, but the engine often had to be worked manually because the water power was so feeble. The mill was no longer in use by 1927, and it was put up for sale with the adjacent Mill Cottage in 1934. Described as "a gentleman's residence with a picturesque disused water mill", it was clear that the mill's importance had ebbed away.

The mill stood unused, apart from for storage, and nominally for sale until Crawley Borough Council used a compulsory purchase order to buy it in 1974. The council was acquiring land on the edge of Ifield for housing. It allowed a group of volunteers to attempt to restore the mill, which was in poor structural condition. Work started on 15 June 1974.

All parts of the structure were affected by the neglect and long period of disuse. Trees had invaded the building, dislodging the roof; the main timbers holding the building up were rotting and needed replacement; a retaining wall had collapsed inwards; and the water wheel, while still sound, was embedded in the mud. The work took eight years—much longer than the original estimate of three, although large donations of money paid for many interior fittings which had not been taken into account. Three staircases, the board cladding on the inside walls and the wooden floors were all renewed, and all windows were refitted to their original design. On the exterior, the weatherboarding was removed and a layer of waterproof cladding installed. Much of the boardwork had to be replaced, although the original appearance was preserved. The roof was also repaired inside and out to prevent it decaying any further.

Replacing the load-bearing timbers and supports was particularly difficult. The whole building had to be lifted with hydraulic jacks and suspended aloft temporarily while new timbers were installed. Work on the water wheel and its surrounding brick structure was also difficult and took several years. Parts of the wheel were salvaged and incorporated into the rebuilt oak and steel structure. The walls supporting it were totally rebuilt at the same time. A sluice gate was built across the mill pond, and a flow control mechanism was brought in from the disused Hammonds Mill in Burgess Hill, also in West Sussex. The wheel is of the overshot type — the largest such wheel in Sussex — weighs around 6 long tons, has a diameter of 11 feet and can rotate at between 8 and 15 revolutions per minute depending on water flow.

Despite its scale and the difficulty of many of the tasks, the restoration was carried out almost entirely by volunteers working mostly at weekends. Some unemployed people enrolled in a job creation programme were briefly used, but no professional engineers, construction personnel or other qualified workers were employed at any time during the eight-year process. The wooden parts of the waterwheel in this reconstruction rotted after about 30 years, so with some financial help from the Lottery Heritage Fund a new waterwheel was constructed in steel.

Efforts have been made to improve the ecological and wildlife balance of the mill pond and the surrounding area. The northern part of the pond had to be drained in 1976 during the reconstruction work, and trees started to become established in the bed; the part south of the railway line, meanwhile, was described as a "virtual desert" ecologically. By 1979, however, it had been restocked with more than 30,000 fish, and birds quickly became established again: a study recorded 58 species. The soil is considered to be of good quality, which improves the chances of suitable vegetation becoming established.