There was a mill at Little Lawford worth 4s in the Domesday book. Trade directories show it active as a corn mill until at least 1921 when Mrs Russell was a water miller there (widow of the former miller Robert Russell) but milling had ceased by 1924. The water wheel was removed in the 1940s to ease the passage of flood water. By the 1950s a small roller mill had been installed to produce animal foodstuffs, however this was driven from outside the building by a tractor.
The mill building today
The building still exists beside a rather deep ford, though it’s no longer a mill. I was told that a car got stuck in the ford across the river here recently and had to be rescued by the fire brigade. This is why I didn’t venture across the river, which had clearly recently flooded, to take my ‘now’ photo. I’m told there’s a footbridge not far away so I must go back and take another photo from the far side.
Little Lawford Hall
The mill is reached down Clayhill Lane past the remnants of Little Lawford Hall (shown above) whose colourful past is described in the linked article.
A trip down the River Avon revisited
This is part of a series of ‘before and after’ photographs based on the Rev. E.N. Dew’s lantern slides for a talk about the Warwickshire Avon. The original photos date from around 1900 and the linked article explains the history of the photographs.
Comments
I have a photo of my self on the Foot Bridge in 1942 and another of me on the same bridge in 2012. The area was our “playground” as children, we loved the river and the fields and spinneys around there, great memories
I remember paying £5 a week back in the day to keep my horse in a field here, then it was owned by a Mr and Mrs Tunnycliffe who were quite the characters. The banks were full of the burrows of water voles which sadly the local yobs used to sometimes shoot. It was a lovely place though and I had some great times there.
I too remember the ford as we called it and many summer days were spent swimming by the waterfall . I new Bill Tunnyclife really well as I worked for Cliff Kendrick at Clay Hill farm for many years . I left the UK in 1971 and have lived in Australia ever since .
Every time I go back to the village I go for a walk over the fields to Bill,s place and to see the farm next door owned by the Barns family
We played in the ford and fished in the wear pool we paid Mrs Tunicliffe five pence to fish we got caught fishing myself and Gaz my mate and were going to get thrown off. I said we would pay to fish, Mrs Tunicliffe said how much – I said jokingly five pence to which she said ok, and that was it everyone then fished there for 5p, but we spent hours around there in those long lost childhood summers. We thought Mr Tunicliffe was called John, don’t know why.
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