The first customer order for our second volume of the series detailing Hampshire mills and milling life, was made by an out-of-county man and here he has kindly allowed us to print his critique:

The Mills and Millers of Hampshire, Vol. 2 - West, including the rivers Avon & Test, & the New Forest,
edited by Dr. Ashok Vaidya. Hampshire Mills Group, 2012.
240 pp, illus. ISBN 978-0-9569034-1-9. £12.99 + £2.00 p&p. Obtainable on this site  

 For many years the Archivist of the Hampshire Mills Group Tony Yoward, and his late wife Mary, researched and collected information about mills and millers. Tony is also a member of DIAS and it is good to see this work now in print supplemented by contributions from other members of the Hampshire Mills Group. Volume 1 covering the rivers Itchen, Meon and Hamble has already been published.

 Volume 2 includes 95 mills and over 900 millers are identified. A number of the mills are close to the borders of Dorset and the book will therefore be an extremely useful guide for those wishing to make a visit into Hampshire to find some of the mills. The book is attractively presented with illustrations in full colour supplemented with maps and diagrams. Each mill is fully described and includes current and historical information about the mill and its occupants. Sources are fully referenced, and there is a good index.

 The Hampshire Mills Group is to be congratulated in publishing such a valuable resource in an attractive format, and the book is highly recommended for purchase not only by mill enthusiasts but also by all interested in industrial history and family history.

 Reviewed by John Brown, Chairman of Dorset Industrial Archaeology Society.

 I echo John Brown’s comments; an excellent second volume with ‘added value’ of information/explanation  boxes on some of the various milling industries.   Sheila.

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The River Wandle Companion by Bob Steel and Derek Coleman. 200 pictures; more than 40 maps.  Privately published. Paperback £16.75. Hardback £26.75. Both prices include p&p. Purchasing is online through: www.wandlebook.co.uk. And various points along the Trail including Wandsworth Museum.

A new coverage of the changes to the river area stretching from Wandsworth and the Thames to its source in Croydon in Surrey, The River Wandle Companion by local men, Bob Steel and Derek Coleman, has just been published.  Mr Stone covers all aspects of the river and the developments in and around it through the centuries and takes the reader on The Wandle Trail.  The more than 40 known watermills and their activities are covered in Chapter 3, The Industrial Heritage, which also contains a subchapter on the Surrey Iron Railway, still in use today.  A section on the natural history entitled Wild River is contributed by Derek Coleman . This is the first general guide to the whole river for some fifteen years, and the largest volume on the river since Hobson’s Book of the Wandle nearly a century ago.

If you are just interested in the Wandle’s mills, The Mills of the River Wandle by David Saxby is a cheaper read at £2.95 post free, published in 2008.