Tide Mills, East Sussex

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Map sources for Tide Mills, East Sussex at grid reference TQ459002

Plaque of Tide Mills Time-Line

The derelict mill race sluice, from the mill pond side

The derelict mill race sluice, from the seaward side

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.

1 The old village
2 Mill complex
3 Access
4 Untrue myths
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] The old village

The village consisted of a large tide mill and numerous workers' cottages, housing about 100 workers. The tide mill at Bishopstone^[1] was erected in 1761 by the Duke of Newcastle^[2], and was later owned and operated by William Catt (1770-1853) and his family.

The Sussex Archaeological Society^[3] 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 area accommodated vast numbers of Canadian troops during the Second World War.

There are the remains of a station^[4]^[5] on the Newhaven to Seaford line at grid reference 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^[6]) 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 grid reference TV469998.

[edit] Mill complex

Photograph showing a windmill in addition to the tide mill complex

Old photographs and paintings, together with a poem show that the tide mill complex included a windmill.^[7]

[edit] Access

Access is 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 grid reference TQ463005 (very limited parking, and access is via a pedestrian railway crossing at Bishopstone Beach Halt), or is along the beach to the east of Newhaven Harbour