Three Mills

The Three Mills are former working mills in Bromley-by-Bow on the River Lea in the East End of London, one of London’s oldest extant industrial centres. The largest and most powerful of the four remaining tidal mills is possibly the largest tidal mill in the world. It is mainly accessed by a bridge over the Limehouse Cut and River Lea.

The River Lea Tidal Mill Trust Ltd owns the House Mill and the Miller's House buildings, which are used for educational projects and as conference spaces. The Lower Lea Project is also based at Three Mills in The Miller's House. The Prescott Channel, a former flood relief channel, to the east, creates Three Mills Island, and the mills share this with the 3 Mills Studios, a 10 acre film and TV studio, which makes a large number of major films and television programmes.

It is thought that there were eight or possibly nine mills on the River Lea in Stratford at the time of the Domesday Book (though this number may refer to the number of pairs of millstones rather than buildings). These would therefore have been the earliest recorded examples of a tidal mill system.

Stratford Langthorne Abbey, founded in 1135, acquired the three mills some time in the 12th or 13th centuries, and the area became known as Three Mills. By the time Henry VIII dissolved the abbey in the 1530s, the mills were grinding flour for the bakers of Stratford-atte-Bow, who were celebrated for the quality of their bread and who supplied the huge City of London market. In 1588, one of the mills was described as a "gunpowder mill". During the 16th century the three mills were reduced to two (which today are the House Mill and the Clock Mill). In the 17th century the mills were used to grind grain, which was then used to distil alcohol; the mills became a major supplier to the alcohol trade and gin palaces of London.

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