Flour deliveries leaving Toovey’s Mill in 1900. In 1913, Foden steam lorries were replaced with wagons and horses
Picture: The Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd
In 1587, the flour mill was leased from Queen Elizabeth I by Nicholas King and for a further two hundred years the King and the Surrey families carried out the work at the mill. A new name appeared in 1780 when Thomas Toovey, who married his first cousin Esther Surrey, moved into the Mill House and took over the milling process. Thomas died in 1830 and was succeeded by his son, also called Thomas. It was Thomas Toovey junior who, in 1846, sold the mill to the Grand Junction Canal Company for £15,000 with a 21-year lease granted back at £300 per annum.
Toovey’s Mill, Kings Langley. The canal ensured that raw materials could be delivered in bulk to the mill
Picture: The Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd
By 1915, T.W. Toovey Ltd had been formed. Thomas’s nephew, Lewis Dean, became the owner and manager in 1927 and remained managing director until his retirement in 1971. Thomas William Toovey died in April 1933.
The well-known company Fellows, Morton & Clayton Ltd., was also used as a convenient canal carrier. When these wide-boats were requisitioned during World War 1, Toovey’s bought its own boats to carry the wheat from Brentford to Kings Langley. The boats named ‘Langley’ (1916) and ‘Golden Spray’ (1922) were both built by Bushell Bros. of Tring, but were sold in 1930.
Toovey’s “Golden Spray” working boat, seen here in c.1929, replaced the horse-drawn second-hand boat, “Betty” in 1922. It was sold in 1930, but continued to be used commercially as a refuse carrier. “Golden Spray” was the brand name of Toovey’s top grade flour
Picture: The Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd
By The Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd