River Tillingham

The River Tillingham flows through the English county of East Sussex.
It meets the River Brede and the eastern River Rother near the town of Rye. A navigable sluice controlled the entrance to the river between 1786 and 1928, when it was replaced by a vertical lifting gate which was not navigable. The river provided water power to operate the bellows of an iron works at Beckley Furnace, used to make cannons for the Royal Navy between 1578 and 1770, when it became uneconomic, and a water mill which replaced it, until that burnt down in 1909. The lower reaches supported a thriving shipbuilding industry from the early nineteenth century onwards, and although on a smaller scale, was still doing so in 2000.

The ancient course of the Tillingham was rather different from its present one, as the river discharged into a broad area defined by islands, tidal creeks and salt marshes during the Roman period, rather than the estuary of the River Rother. The thirteenth century was a time of turmoil, as from the 1240s there was a period of 60 years when weather conditions were extreme. Old Winchelsea, which was built on a huge mound of shingle to the east of the mouth, was threatened with flooding, and ultimately succumbed. Following extensive flooding, including the washing away of the church on 1271, a new town was established further to the west on a hill near Iham, just to the south of the Tillingham, in 1280. In 1287, a great storm deposited large amounts of shingle and mud on the port of Romney, and blocked up the mouth of the River Rother, which carved out a new route to the sea near Rye, where it joined the Tillingham and the River Brede.

Wikipedia