Portal Mill

Portal Mill, Laverstoke
mill, water mill, paper mill

parish:
county:
coords:
Test, River
Laverstoke
Hampshire
SU493487
modern mill; produces the fine paper which has been used for british banknotes for over two centuries
a domesday mill; paper used for bank of England treasury notes
refce: Ellis, C M: 1968: Gazetteer of the Water, Wind and Tide Mills of Hampshire: ProcHFC: 25: pp119-140
refce: Shaw, A K: 1958: Windmills and Watermills in Hampshire: ProcHFC: 21: pp107-109; 126-133
a domesday mill; paper used for bank of England treasury notes
refce: Reynolds 1970

old map: 25inch County Series map -- Hants XVII.14

description
The place is described in text Cobbett 1830 (perhaps)

Period - 19th century, early
refce: Cobbett 1830
Whitchurch is a small town, but famous for being the place where the paper has been made for the Borough-Bank! I passed by the mill on my way to get out upon the Downs to go to Alresford where I intend to sleep. I hope the time will come, when a monument will be erected where that mill stands, and when on that monument will be inscribed 'the curse of England'. This spot ought to be held accursed in all time henceforth and for evermore. It has been the spot from which have sprung more and greater mischiefs than ever plagued mankind before. ...
...
... Whitchurch, ... through which there runs that stream, which turns the mill of 'SQUIRE PORTAL, and which mill makes the Bank of England Note-Paper! ... the river of Whitchurch, which a man of threescore may jump across dry-shod, ... and which is, to look at, of far less importance than any gutter in the WEN! Yet, this river, merely by turning a wheel, which wheel sets some rag-tearers and grinders and washers and recompressors in motion, has produced a greate[r] effect on the condition of men, than has been produced on that condition by all the other rivers, all the seas, all the mines and all the continents in the world.
... the little sedgy river of Whitchurch! It has, in the short space of a hundred and thirty-one years, and, indeed, in the space of the last FORTY, caused greater changes as to property than had been caused by all other things put together in the long course of seven centuries, though, during that course there had been a sweeping, confiscating Protestant reformation.
...
... the Whitchurch rivulet goes on, shifting property from hand to hand. ... paper-money people ... paper-system ...

old map
Shown on an old map by Milne 1791

refce: Milne 1791
Jos. Portall Esq

Associated with
person papermaker: Portal, Henri
person bank: Bank of England
object

Associated with
object

   Old Hampshire Gazetteer - JandMN: 2001