Abbey Mill

The Abbey Mill stands at the junction of two mill streams where they rejoin the Avon, a few metres from the abbey's south side. The current building dates mainly from the eighteenth century but stands on a site that has had a mill since at least the Norman Conquest. It was converted to residential use in the late twentieth century, as the overview notes, but the exterior retains its character and the setting beside the water and the abbey is one of the best in the town.

The mill race and the surrounding channels make this a good spot for watching the river and getting a sense of Tewkesbury's relationship with water — the town was historically as dependent on the rivers for transport and power as it was prone to being flooded by them.

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A story
The mill at the Abbey is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, making it one of the oldest documented mills in England. It was in continuous operation from the Norman Conquest until the twentieth century — nearly nine hundred years of grinding grain beside the river. The Victorian novelist Dinah Craik made it famous as 'Abel Fletcher's Mill' in her 1856 novel *John Halifax, Gentleman*, which used Tewkesbury as the model for its fictional town of Norton Bury.

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