West Mills, Wareham

[perisama]

Hi,I am trying to find out when the water mill was first built at west Mills and who in the history of time has live/worked there. It was used as a flour mill I thimk. I have the Baggs family in 1881 but not much info before or after. I have a relative who lives there and has asked me for it's history. Thank you, I know you are all brilliant at finding things. xxx

[Peter Goodey]

Why not use the census to go back as far as you can?

For example, 1871 The National Archives; RG 10/1994 f 27 p 8

I'll leave others to you.

You don't need an address search facility - there are only two enumeration books covering Lady St Mary parish.

Apart from that, I'd say you seem geographically ideally situated to do bit of local history research.

[gasser]

see access to archives nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=031-dplr&cid=-1#-1 www. in front

WAREHAM, ST MARTIN [no ref. or date]
[no title] D/PLR/T204 1593-1869
11
Contents:
Two water corn mills called North Mills, tucking mill, weirs, meadow etc. on north of West Walls and west of North River near North Bridge, 1593-1630; mills, 1781; depositions of Charles Tuck and Thomas Frost concerning water for North and West Mills, 1773; valuation of fixtures in North Mills, with letters, 1869. (Morton, Devirge alias Bertrum, Alea, Farwell, Cantloe, Midwinter, Dean, Drew, Michel, Yeatman).

Also try Dorset History Centre found via google

[Coromandel]

You can find some more pieces of the jigsaw in the Wareham records available via Dorset Online Parish Clerks here:

http://www.
opcdorset.org/WarehamFiles/Wareham.htm

For example, on 8 Feb. 1761 they have 'Mr Robert Bacon of West Mills St. Mary's papermaker' marrying Mrs Mary Godwin, while the 1852 Slater's directory lists Edwin Randall, West Mills, under the heading 'Millers'.

Also try Google Book searches for "West Mills" (and "West Mill") and "Wareham". This brings up a book about paper making and another about Dorset place names, both of which look interesting but are only available in snippet view. Perhaps you can order them through your local library service?