Chorley Iron Foundry
| Traded as | Chorley Iron Foundry |
|---|---|
| Industry | Iron foundry |
| Founded | pre-1818 |
| Defunct | 1884 |
| Headquarters | Cocking, West Sussex, England 50°57′35″N 0°44′36″W / 50.95961°N 0.74339°WCoordinates: 50°57′35″N 0°44′36″W / 50.95961°N 0.74339°W |
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Key people
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Robert Chorley |
Cocking Foundry (also known as Chorley Iron Foundry) is an abandoned iron foundry in the South Downs of England. It was situated to the north of the village of Cocking, West Sussex and was active for most of the 19th century. The foundry's output included wheels for watermills, some of which remain in use.
The foundry was situated at grid reference SU883185 on Costers Brook, a northward flowing tributary of the River Rother, about 1.2 km (0.7 mi) north of Cocking and 2.6 km (1.6 mi) south of Midhurst. The site is now on private property and few traces remain visible.
The earliest known reference to the foundry at Cocking is in the estate account books of Uppark from 1818 which record payments to Robert Chorley of Cocking Foundry for the repair of the water supply. Chorley subsequently installed a new pump which was gear driven from an overshot metal wheel. There are some remains of the wheel and Chorley's name is cast in the nearby sluice gate.
In December 1838, a lease was drawn up between the Cowdray Estate and "Robert Chorley of Midhurst, millwright" in respect of "two pieces of meadow or pasture land called Upper and Lower Twenty Acres, together with the coppice and pond belonging, in Cocking". The lease permitted the erection of "buildings on the said premises hereby demised for the purposes of his Trade of Millwright" and "one or more water wheels to be driven by the water of the said pond" and the construction of "convenient roads".
On the 1840 tithe map of Cocking, a building marked "Mill" is shown at this location, alongside a representation of a water-wheel. The Ordnance Survey map of 1875 marks the site as "Foundry Pond". This was still referred to as "Foundry Pond" as recently as 1953.
In 1839, Charles "Carlino" Brown (1820–1901), the son of Charles Armitage Brown (close friend and biographer of the poet John Keats), came to Midhurst to visit his Uncle William. While in Midhurst, he met Robert Chorley who agreed to employ and train him as a millwright and engineer. After serving a probationary term, Brown complained to his father that Chorley was no more than a simple millwright and that after his apprenticeship he would have to look for employment elsewhere in order to obtain the knowledge he required. By the end of the following year, the arrangement with Chorley was ended and Brown was engaged on designing a "machine for cutting tobacco". Brown was later to become a senior politician in New Zealand.
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