Reply To: Tovil Paper Mills (Maidstone)

I have recently re-discovered some poor quality scans of family photographs recording the delivery of a new Lancashire boiler to Lower Tovil Mill – Allnutt’s.

The original photos were rather dark and the scans were hurriedly done (one dinnertime at work) with no attempt to adjust the settings. The photos went with other house contents after my mother’s death. I recall they had a stamp on the rear for the Maidstone photographer Sweatman Hedgeland who were down near the cannon.

I attach the photos for what they are worth. The new (maybe second hand?) boiler was delivered sometime in the 1930s – in the original photo it was just descernibe that the steam engine in one view had a 4 digit number beginning with 1 – so post 1931 Southern Railway renumbering scheme. I think I have got the order of the phots correct, the sequence shows the boiler, unloaded from rail transport (presumably rolled down the embankment from the goods yard), loading onto road trailer then drawn along the lane now called Allnutt Mill Close / Albert Reed Gardens. This move was only a short distance before the boiler was rolled off the trailer and winched in through the rear gate to the mill. The final photos show preparation of the boiler bed and it being dragged into position.