A Flax Mill in Romsey   by Jeff Hawksley

Some little while ago Sheila, our editor, wrote to ask about flax mills and flax processing in the Hampshire area. The answer is that there was a flax mill in Romsey, two in Fordingbridge and, no doubt, others too. The mills in Fordingbridge were on a larger scale and made sailcloth. Imagine how much of this would have been needed for the square-rigged sailing ships in the 19^th century.

The first mention of a flax mill in Romsey appears  in The Hampshire Chronicle of 4^th November 1822 which carried a report of a young girl called Fielder, aged 14 years, who became entangled in the machinery and died. A year later a Trade Directory lists William Lintott, Flax Yarn Spinners, Abbey Mills, Romsey. Tax records show that Lintott already owned the site in 1813 so it is possible, if not probable, that he built and opened the mill shortly after. The sketch shows how the area may have looked in 1832 with the flax mill at the end of Abbey Water. Lintott lived in Abbey House and the coal yard and hemp processing area are also shown.

Lintott kept the mill until he died in 1832 when it was advertised for sale as “a superior water powered spinning factory, three stories high with a new bucket waterwheel 16 feet diameter”. Today the head, or fall, of water at the site is about 13 feet so, if this was also the case in the 1830s, this suggests the waterwheel would, most likely, have been a high-breast wheel. The advertisement includes “all those two extensive and well built brick and tiled buildings lately used by Messrs. Lintott as stores and workshops for manufacturing flax and hemp, with the coal-yard adjoining”. In 1838 the Parliamentary Return notes that the flax mill at Romsey had a waterwheel of 16 horse-power and employed 31 persons, over half of these being between the ages of 13 and 18 years. In 1840 there were 36 employees.

By 1843, maybe earlier, the mill had been taken over by Samuel Thompson. Thompson already owned the East Mills in Fordingbridge which, in 1840, employed 200 hands. It was quite a substantial business manufacturing ticking (a striped linen or cotton cloth for mattresses) and sailcloth. He also had the West Mills in Fordingbridge in West Street though at that time it was known as Back Street

Back in Romsey, in 1842, a man was prosecuted for stealing sacks from Thompson's Mill which tells us that this mill was also producing sacks. These were important items at that time; all the grain would have been brought to the corn mills in sacks and sacks would have been used again to carry the flour away.

After a suitable time the plants are dried and subjected to further processing to remove the woody outer layers. There are three steps. First the dried stalks were crushed in a “break”, then bunches of fibres were beaten to remove more of the woody material, a process known as “scutching”. Finally the fibres were drawn through a “hackle” to align the fibres and remove any last traces of woody material; a process analogous to carding wool. The final result, after all this work, is a handful of lustrous silky strands of flax.

From about 1790 machines began to appear to break, scutch and hackle the flax and there is a considerable literature available for Northern Ireland. But not much for England. Nor has it yet been possible to discover how much of the preliminary processing was carried out at the mill in Romsey or what was done in the Hemp Manufacturing Area. The census of 1851 for Romsey lists three hemp dressers along with flax spinners, weavers, sack makers etc.

With so few dressers it seems likely the flax or hemp was delivered ready for the final combing but, so far, this is only a guess.

In Fordingbridge, in 1853, there was an exhibition at the Mechanic's Institute where “Messrs. Thompson exhibited specimens of their sail-cloth manufacture, from its commencement in the green flax to its completion”. From this it would appear that they did all the processing themselves but it is not known whether the flax was grown locally – another area for research perhaps ?

What happened to the Romsey Mill ?  The flax mill was still working in 1864 but by 1865 it appears to have changed hands. By 1867 the corn mill had closed and by 1873 a new building had been erected on the site which was used as a classroom. This building is still there. Meanwhile the flax mill had re-opened as a corn mill. In 1892 the whole site was taken over by the Sisters of La Sagesse, a religious order of nuns from the Vendee region of France and they are still there.