Water Mills

Many of you will be familiar with this image but there are details you might not be aware of. The blue branch we can see today, right next to the east side of the waste disposal plant. It was probably more naturally curved before the railway was built. The yellow line is the London Road and beyond it the southern half of the cemetary, but the red line is the now dried up branch of the Sherbourne that used to serve Swift's Corner Mill. That was probably to the left of the scene. Just on the other side of the railway line there was a tangle of channels and on the western most one was another mill, possibly Liggin's Mill although I'm not 100% sure.

This is Naul's mill, looking south east. I've been struggling to imagine the mill pond and the park pool as the same place... and now I find that it's not! The mill pond is higher up than the pool and at a different angle. The factory is in roughly the same place as the mill. There used to be a set of steps up from the pool towards Middleborough Road. This would have come out near the sluice on the left of the sketch.

When we used to walk to Nauls Mill Park we used a footpath which went from Bridgeman Road. I am sure at that time a stream ran along the side of the footpath, or rather the footpath was built by the stream. We went under the railway arches to get to the park, I am sure there was also part of the stream from Fynford Road by the entrance to the school. I can find no evidence of it now on Google maps so it must all be under ground.

Hi Anne. The area was a bit of a warren of streams and channels. I'm guessing that the original brook started off in Radford or beyond, followed the valley and ran just to the east of where the park pool was. When the mill was created a new stream was tapped off the brook at a height a bit above the level of the mill pond, which seems to be a bit north of the railway line. There was a sluice there. I imagine that in dry weather the old brook might be shut off altogether to serve the mill with what water there was. There was the additional sluice on the mill pond itself to relieve pressure on the pond level in an emergency. That flowed back to the brook. The feed to the mill had unnaturally sharp corners and the park paths followed them somewhat. The railway made more sharp corners. The original Coventry streams themselves weren't left untouched and often meanders were straightened. This seems the case with the original Radford Brook as it is quite straight along the valley. Once the mill was abandoned the original stream became the primary route again and the park was set within the boundaries of the straightened brook and the mill feed channel. The park pool sits next to the stream (as you indicate probably underground now) and was maybe fed by another sluice? Although it might now be filled with drinking water? I think that most of the oldest paths followed the water.