Godalming, Pullmans Mill 1910

Photo ref: 62248

More about this scene

While wool was pre-eminent, other industries occupied the people. Perhaps originally because of the ready availability locally of oak bark (which is rich in tannin, and produces the best quality leather, though slowly) the curing of leather kept many in work. Pullman's Westbrook Mill produced soft, chamois type leathers; Gay & Co in Ockford Road worked on small skins such as rabbit; and Rea and Fisher's by the railway, the heavier hides. It was said that a blind man arriving by train would know he was in Godalming by the stink! At the end of the 19th century the town was at its most industrial stage. With its leather mills, woollen factories, breweries and quarries, and with a paper mill at Catteshall, it was not a pleasant place. In 1890, a newly appointed County Council public health inspector reported on 'the rush of offensive liquid and solid matter from Rea's tannery', and 'liquid filth of Godalming's slaughterhouses' polluting the river. By 1895 however, he could report that Godalming was one of 24 places with sewage treatment works recently completed or in course of completion. Formerly known as Westbrook and Salgasson Mills, there has been a mill on the site of Pullman's for perhaps a thousand years.