Tide Mills, East Sussex

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Tide Mills
shire_district= Lewes
shire_county = East Sussex
region= South East England
constituency_westminster=
post_town=
postcode_district=
postcode_area=
dial_code=
os_grid_reference= TQ459002
latitude= 50.782865
longitude= 0.0706

Tide Mills is a derelict village in East Sussex, England. It lies about 2 km southeast of Newhaven and 4 km northwest of Seaford and is near both Bishopstone and East Blatchington.

The old village

The village consisted of a large tide mill and numerous workers' cottages, housing about 100 workers. The tide mill at Bishopstone [ [http://www.villagenet.co.uk/sevensisters/villages/bishopstone.php Bishopstone, the Largest Tide Mill in Sussex] ] was erected in 1761 by the Duke of Newcastle [ [http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/nnmuseum/LocalSub.htm Newhaven Local & Maritime Museum - A Selection of Local Subjects] ] , and was later owned and operated by William Catt (1770-1853) and his family.

The Sussex Archaeological Society [ [http://www.sussexpast.co.uk/research/page.php?sp_page_id=122 The Sussex Archaeological Society Tide Mills archeology project] ] started a long-term project in April 2006 to record the entire East Beach site: Mills, Railway Station, Nurses Home, Hospital, RNAS Station and the later holiday homes and the Marconi Radio station (1904). Apart from the dig, it will evolve into a huge collection of film, video, recollections and photographs logging the decline of the area.

The mill stopped in around 1900, the village was condemned as unfit for habitation in 1936 with the last residents forcibly removed in 1939. The area was in part cleared to give fields of fire and also used for street fighting training. The site was not used for target practice by Newhaven Fort Artillery, though this story is common locally. [Newhaven Local & Maritime Museum]

The area accommodated vast numbers of Canadian troops during the Second World War.

There are the remains of a station [ [http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1436&ArticleID=1510774 The train now standing at Bishopstone Beach] ] [ [http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/b/bishopstone_beach_halt/index.shtml Bishopstone Beach Halt station] ] on the Newhaven to Seaford line at gbmapping|TQ460003. It started life as either Bishopstone Station (the Victorian OS map of 1879 shows it as this together with a short branch line to the mills [ [http://www.old-maps.co.uk/oldmaps/index_external.jsp?easting=546350&northing=100550 The Victorian OS map of 1879] ] ) or Tide Mills Halt, but became Bishopstone Beach Halt in 1939 before its closure in 1942. This is different from today's Bishopstone railway station at gbmapping|TV469998.

Mill complex

Old photographs and paintings, together with a poem show that the tide mill complex included a windmill. [Source- plaques on the site for visitors]

Access

Access is either via Mill Drove, an insignificant single track road which runs south west from the Newhaven and Seaford roads at approximately the point where one changes into the other gbmapping|TQ463005 (very limited parking, and access is via a pedestrian railway crossing at Bishopstone Beach Halt); or along the beach to the east of Newhaven Harbour.

ee also

* Watermills in the United Kingdom

References

External links

* [http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/tidemills Friends of The Tidemills and Newhaven Eastside Conservation Group]
* [http://www.bopcris.ac.uk/bop1688/ref624.html Corn. Bishopsten (sic), Sussex. Tide mills. Petition of merchants for sanction to build tide mills for grinding corn]
* [http://www.gnn.gov.uk/content/detail.asp?NewsAreaID=2&ReleaseID=128896 Outreach Helps to Turn the Tide]
* [http://www.biodiversitysussex.org/salinelagoons.htm Saline Lagoons] The pound for the tide mill as a wildlife habitat
* [http://www.riverocean.org.uk/vanguard/walkers/south/stories/story-tidemills.htm Tidemills - a sustainable energy story]