Artless Bodger

No 6. Arrived at the gate to the back of Lower Tovil mill (the main, front entrance was in Lower Tovil). The workmen are preparing to unload, knocking out wedges – looks a bit hazardous. The roof in the background is that of the goods shed (covered loading platform in fact) in Tovil Goods yard, terminus of the Tovil goods branch but at one time potentially an end on connection with the proposed Maidstone and Headcorn Railway which would have climbed the Loose Valley.

4. In transit, looking towards the river, buildings and chimney of Lower Tovil mill (Allnutt’s) behind the ensemble.

No 2. Winching and jacking the boiler onto the road trailer, shackles on the winch cables from the traction engine visible on the boiler shell, jacks and packing to the left. View is towards the bottom of Tovil Hill and Upper Tovil mill (Reeds). The corrugated iron shed visible is part of what was, or became RCC Tovil.

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.

124. Conveyor, June 1922.

Pulp stacks being built, the temporary corrugated iron upper wall to the powerhouse and beaterfloor range on the left, later opened up when the powerhouse was extended and the kraft beaterfloor constructed.

122. Salle, Feb 1922.

This photo was taken from a position roughly in line with the future New Hythe Halt behind the photographer. The mill siding is visible in the foreground, such as it was then, later No 6 loading dock would occupy this area. The wooden huts and trees are those seen in the flood photos.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Artless Bodger. Reason: Spelling

120. Main Drive Shaft.

This is the eastern section under the white beaterfloor, another shaft ran from the powerhouse under the kraft beaterfloor as the mill was extended, and can be seen in some of the mill plans. By the late 1970s the white beaterfloor basement had been extensively rebuilt aand no sign of the main shaft remained. Some support piers of the western section remained under the kraft beaterfloor near chests Y1 – Y4 (the vertical cylindrical chests then serving no 3 m/c and as a starch slurry tank). The underside of the upperfloor of the beaterfloors showed the arrangement of the steel beams to provide for the drive belts to pass through to the refiners and beaters.