Sundridge Paper Mill Kent

One of the largest industries in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Kent was paper making. The demand for white paper after 1754 in particular was enormous as every parish was required to record marriages in a printed register and this and the need for paper banknotes created a large demand and various parts of Kent responded. From 1813 Parish registers were required to conform under an act of George III to maintain standard form Baptismal and burial registers and Church of England Dioceses purchased from London stationery printers  all of the records for each parish in England. Other faiths also needed to record and the demand for white paper increased.
Sundridge Mill provided paper for another major customer namely the Bank of England for over a century and it was therefore a major industry in the area.
A map of the mill is included in a collection of Chevening material held at Kent Archives and Library Maidstone under reference P88/28 papers presented by the Barham family to the parish of Chevening. The Mill had a long mill pond and was an extensive range of buildings. As a water powered mill it could not compete in the last half of the nineteenth century with the larger paper mills which were steam powered elsewhere in Kent such as Dartford.
The Sundridge Baptismal registers transcribed for Kent Online Parish Clerks reveal the number of heads of Households described as paper makers or foreman to the manager. The population of Sundridge not engaged in agriculture or trade were employed at the Mill and it would represent the largest year round employment in the parish.
The mill buildings were converted to a laundry in 1910 and the water wheel removed to enable steam power to be generated for the Laundry. The mill pond was destroyed by a bomb in 1940 and in 1969 the derelict buidings were demolished. Nowadays there is no sign of the site; the land is waterlogged marsh at the side of the Westerham to Sevenoaks section of the A25 on the approach to Sundridge.
Such images as survive are in postcard form and a selection of them is found in the catalogue of  Mills Archive.
My Sundridge transcripts are being prepared for publication at Kent Online Parish Clerks Sundridge parish page in due course.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020