No 21 - Nailsea and District Local History Society

12 th Century Mill at Tickenhamcomment by Keith GardnerIn Pennant No 14 (page 5) reference was made to the Mill at Middleton,Tickenham, on the Land Yeo, and the possibility of its being Monastic in origin.The source seemed to be the Bristol Record Society's analysis of both theManorial and the Obedientary Accounts of the Abbey of St Augustine in Bristol,(Sabin 1938: 1960)Herein a mill referred to was postulated as being "on the Yeo". As it wasknown that Tickenham had been a holding of the Abbey it was assumed thatthe Middleton mill was the one referred to, and that the Land Yeo, an artificialwaterway, had been cut in, perhaps, the 12 th centuryWork at the time on the Red Book of Berkeley by Canon David Walker (Walker1996) however soon revealed that the entries in fact referred to a small andhitherto unknown settlement in Radford, on the border of Failand and Leigh, inthe vicinity of Mulberry Farm.ReferencesSabin: Bristol Record Society 1938 & 1960Walker: Gloucestershire Record Series 1998Subsequent work on the 600 charters and other land deeds however have nowrevealed that there was a mill on the Abbey's holding at Tickenham (Walker1998). In a charter dated 1195 x 1230 Roger FitzHarding grants to the ecclesiesanctorum Cirici et Julite de Tickenham 'from the tithe of his mill in that vill', forthe sum of 2/- for a light in the church.The problem of dating the Land Yeo and the Middleton mill however does notgo away. Why if the mill survived from c1200 until today does no mill atTickenham appear in either the Obedientary or the Manorial accounts for1491/2.An alternative location actually on the Manor farm Tickenham could well be anexplanation of the enigmatic rock-cut ditch to the south of the church, which,obviously manmade, did until recently carry the Middle Yeo and was possibly anearlier channel for the Land Yeo.