Digital Stroud : Key Landmarks - Uplands

SH Slad Mills by kind permission of Sue Harrison

What:	An old mill (site of) and a newer Victorian factory close by
Where:	Little Mill, GL5 1BA, and Slad Mill, GL5 1BX, are between Slad Road and Lansdown
Then:	Little Mill was originally a fulling mill. Slad Mill started as a clothing factory.
Now:	Little Mill was demolished and built over and Slad mill is now converted into flats.

Little Mill and Slad Mill stood immediately next to one another on the Slad Brook.

Little Mill was the original building. In 1677, Little Mill included two fulling mills and one gig mill. By 1733, there was also a corn mill on the site. The mill became part of the Birches estate and was often known as Burches Mill. Cloth was made here until 1856, when it briefly became a saw mill. From 1863 until the 1890s, it was a corn mill owned by the Ockford family and known as Ockford’s Mill.

In 1898 it was bought by a cabinet maker, but in 1905 the mill burnt down. From the 1920s it was the home of Dick Reyne’s Austral Garage with its fleet of buses. The name later changed to Bellamy’s Garage. A plastics factory covered part of the site by the mid 1960s, and the rest of it was shortly to be a GPO Depot. By this time the old mill buildings had gone, except for one old cottage on the footpath over the Slad Brook bridge.The mill site is now modern housing.

Slad Mill was built in 1890, and doubled in size in the early 20^th century. The building was occupied by a clothing factory under the name Hound Brand. This firm went into liquidation by 1929 and an animal food manufacturer moved in. They failed in 1936, and In 1937, Henry Baughan established an engineering business here. The firm made motor cycles and cars at a factory in Piccadilly Mill and later specialised in extrusion technology. They were sold in 1975.

Slad Mill was converted into flats after 2000.

Revised 2018 EMW

From January 2016, this website is managed by Stroud Local History Society

Key Landmarks - Uplands - Little & Slad Mills