The River Bewl is a tributary of the River Teise

River Teise

The River Teise is a tributary of the River Medway in Kent, England. It begins in Dunorlan Park in Tunbridge Wells. and flows eastwards past Bayham Abbey and then through Lamberhurst...

 in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Its headwaters are in the High Weald, in Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

 between Lamberhurst

Lamberhurst

Lamberhurst is a village and civil parish in Kent although the latter parish was at first in both Kent and East Sussex. The line of the county border was adjusted following the Local Government Act 1894, which required that parish boundaries be aligned with counties...

, Wadhurst

Wadhurst

Wadhurst is a market town in East Sussex, England. It is the centre of the civil parish of Wadhurst, which also includes the hamlets of Cousley Wood and Tidebrook. Wadhurst is twinned with Aubers in France.-Situation:...

 and Flimwell

Flimwell

The village of Flimwell is in the Rother District of East Sussex, in the civil parish of Ticehurst. It is located about two miles from the village of Ticehurst, close to the border with Kent...

. The valley is deeply incised into Tunbridge Wells red sandstone, with a base of alluvium on Wadhurst clay.

Between 1973 and 1975, a 900 metres (984.3 yd) was built across the Bewl valley, cutting off the headwaters. This formed Bewl Water

Bewl Water

Bewl Water is a reservoir in the valley of the River Bewl , straddling the boundary between Kent and East Sussex. It is about 4 km south of Lamberhurst, Kent, England...

, a 30 metres (98.4 ft), with a surface area of 308 hectares (761.1 acre). In times of good flow, water is extracted from the River Medway

River Medway

The River Medway, which is almost entirely in Kent, England, flows for from just inside the West Sussex border to the point where it enters the Thames Estuary....

 at Yalding

Yalding

Yalding is a village and part of Yalding civil parish in the Maidstone District of Kent, England.The village is situated six miles south-west of Maidstone at a point where the Rivers Teise and Beult join the River Medway....

 and pumped through pipes into Bewl Water, where it is stored for times of heavy water demand.

The River Bewl passes under the A21 road and by Scotney Castle

Scotney Castle

Scotney Castle is an English country house with formal gardens south-east of Lamberhurst in the valley of the River Bewl in Kent, England. It belongs to the National Trust....

. At Finchcocks

Finchcocks

Finchcocks is an early Georgian manor house in Goudhurst, Kent, which houses a large collection of historical keyboard instruments: harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, square pianos, organs and other musical instruments...

 it enters the River Teise.

Watermills

The River Bewl and its tributaries powered a number of watermill

Watermill

A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...

s. From source to mouth they were:-

Dunsters Mill, Ticehurst.

TQ 689 323 51.065054°N 0.411489°W

The site of this watermill now lies in the middle of Bewl Water. It was one of those very rare watermills that was an overdrift mill, with the millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s driven from above. This arrangement is more commonly found in windmills. When Bewl Water was built, the fourteenth century Mill House was dismantled and re-erected at Three Legged Cross, Wadhurst.

The overshot waterwheel was some 12 feet (3.66 m) diameter by 6 in 8 in (2.03 m) wide and was carried on a wooden axle. it drove a cast iron pit wheel 10 in 8 in (3.25 m) diameter with 112 wooden cogs. A 5 inches (127 mm) square cast iron layshaft was driven which powered at least two pairs of millstones.

Chingley Forge, Goudhurst

TQ 682 335 51.076041°N 0.402066°W

The site of this ancient forge mill is now covered by the dam of Bewl Water. Chingley forge was built sometime between 1574 and 1589, when Richard Ballard was the tenant of Thomas Darell. Edward Pelham and James Thatcher bought the forge c.1595. In 1637 the forge was leased to Henry Darell. The forge seems to have been disused in 1653 and 1664, but was at work in 1717, producing 46 tons of iron in that year. It was marked on Budgen's map of 1724 and in 1726 the tenant was John Legas. The dam has been recorded as 100 metres (109.4 yd) long.

Chingley Furnace, Goudhurst

TQ 684 327 51.068795°N 0.404546°W

The site of this ancient blast furnace is now covered by the dam of Bewl Water. It was in the Culpeper family in the sixteenth century, Thomas Collepepper holding lands in Chingley in fief from Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 in 1544. The land had formerly been in the ownership of the Abbey of Boxley

Boxley

The large village and civil parish of Boxley in the Maidstone District of Kent, England lies below the slope of the North Downs, four miles NE of Maidstone town...

, which had been dissolved. The furnace was built between 1558 and 1565. In 1574 it was in the possession of Thomas Darell and the tenant was Thomas Dyke. It was sold by Edward Culpeper in 1595. In 1597 Thomas Dyke of Pembury

Pembury

Pembury is a large village in Kent, in the south east of England, with a population of around 6,000. It lies just to the north-east of Tunbridge Wells.The village centre, including the village green and High Street area is a conservation area.-History:...

leased Chingley Furnace to Richard Ballard of Wadhurst, and his sons Thomas and Richard. The forge was powered by an undershot waterwheel. The sites were excavated in 1968/9 by the Wealden Iron Research Group. There is evidence that Chingley Forge was a hammer mill at some time, possibly as early as the first half of the thirteenth century. The dam was recorded as 50 metres (54.7 yd) long and 2.5 metre high. When the site was excavated in 1970, the remains of an overshot waterwheel 8 feet (2.44 m) diameter and 1 foot (0.3048 m) wide were found.