Sawmill Lane

Thornbury

Today Sawmill Lane is the name given to little quiet estate of houses built in the 1990's by Crest Homes. 

In the past it was a little lane leading to the Sawmill.  There were three small houses along the lane usually occupied by employees of the Sawmill.  We know that the houses used to accommodate employees at the Saw Mill and had initially assumed that they were built for that purpose.  We were surprised however to find the houses shown on the 1840 Tithe Map, long before June 1886 when Edmund Cullimore bought the land for the opening of the Mill.  (Note - the Mill was listed in the 1889 Trade Directory and the 1891 census shows the occupants of the houses were workers in the Mill.)

The Sawmill closed about 1957 and the land sold to Thornbury Rural District in 1963 for use as a Council Depot for refuse vehicles, building maintenance and other direct services.  This depot closed about 1969 when a new depot was opened on the Thornbury Trading Estate.  The site was sold to BT for the construction of a new telephone exchange to replace the old one situated on what is now St Mary Street car park.  The houses were demolished in the mid-1960's.

Although the lane is now a dead end, a footpath once led through to Shen and out onto Gloucester Road.

This page was last updated: 24/09/2007