R3/4234

Letter Reads- Duke looking at farm buildings; Crawley, Ridgmont etc. I have suggested doing away with Willington mill, ragged condition & small return for outlay (2,000), & not wanted for adjacent estate - Castlemill being only 1 m. away & Whitbread's Cardington mill. As Duke must keep up head of water for the navigation & for the sake of the meadows have a person on the spot to draw the gates occasionally, I propose to build a cottage & get a steady labourer who works on one of the farms, who for his rent & 4-5 per annum would attend to the gates. When the mill is done away, we can improve the overfall, & I am not sure but that we could offer the navigation so great an accommodation by allowing them to enter the head of water & make themselves a new lock (their present one being inconvenient & bad) where our mill now stands, that in return we might get rid of keeping up head of water & embankment. Did not tell Duke, as difficult to explain, but said would like to see him on spot if he is at Cople some time, so that he might see the deplorable state of the mill. Forbes. Bills. Pym & Ag. Subscription (25). Possible dissolution - ref. to Whitbread.

29 Ap 1840

From: 1840 To: 1840

English

item

Haedy, Christopher,
Whitbread,
Forbes,
Russell, Francis (7th Duke of Bedford)

MILLS, watermills, farms, labourers, water, WOBURN, Woburn Abbey, Crawley, RIDGMONT, WILLINGTON, CARDINGTON, COPLE