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Ham Mill is recorded as a cloth mill from 1608, and in 1634 was sold to Samuel Webb, who received grants of protection against the plundering of his goods in the Civil War from Prince Maurice in 1642 and Prince Rupert in 1643 - a measure of the importance attached to supplies of Stroud scarlets by the Royalists.
In 1685, it had two fulling stocks, a gig mill, a grist mill, dye house, press house and five racks, and the property also included a mansion called Doleman's Ham and a considerable estate.
The mill produced cloth throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and in 1833, it was powered by a steam engine as well as three water wheels. The mill then consisted of blocks erected in 1814, 1825 and 1832.
In 1838, it was recorded that there were 45 power looms and 29 handlooms. By 1846, the property was at least partly in use as a sawmill, but clothmaking was still being carried on there in the 1850s.
Fires in 1841 and 1866 seriously damaged the mill. The surviving stone mill building dates from 1834 and is six storeys high, with tall tapering chimneys. The clothier's house west of the mill site is mid 19th century Tudor Gothic, but may have earlier origins. One of the other surviving buildings contains an intact wheel pit.
In 1900, the mill was sold to a firm of carpet weavers, Bond Worth, who in 1907, had 300 looms and employed about 700 people. They left the site in 2000, and the mill was still unoccupied in December 2014.
From January 2016, this website is managed by Stroud Local History Society
Revised 2018 EMW
