Every village has its hidden past, but few have as much as this one.

Tovil Parish Council has decided to show off its rich history with new information boards scattered around. Alan Smith went to find out more…

Today, Tovil is very much a suburb of Maidstone, but it was once a distinct village, and some locals still refer to it as such.

It is largely a series of housing estates now, with more being added all the time, but in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was very much an industrial powerhouse with its paper mills and factories giving employment to thousands.

The parish council has just installed six information boards at key points to remind both residents and visitors of the history all around them.

I decided to take a walk around Tovil to see what they said.

Much of Tovil’s history is centred on the Loose Stream. As anyone who has ever visited Loose Village will know, natural springs are abundant in the area, and as they pour into the Loose Stream, they create a fast-flowing and powerful watercourse that is ideal for powering water mills.

Over the centuries, the stream has supported 13 mills along its length before it flows into the River Medway.

I began my walk at Bockingford Mill, the most upstream of the mills within the Tovil Parish.

As was repeatedly brought home to me as I wandered around, clues to the past are often found in the old place names.

Today, paper is generally made from wood pulp. In past times, it was often made from old rags, and these rags had first to be washed to cleanse them of impurities and to soften the fibrous material. That process was known as bocking.

Bockingford Lane now passes over Loose Stream on a bridge, but I suspect the word “ford” suggests that centuries ago, I would have been wading through the waters of the stream.

Bockingford Mill was long ago converted into homes, and it is not immediately obvious to the casual rambler that it is a mill. But from the rear, you can see the mill race where the water passes over the water wheel, which is underneath the building.

The stream then passes through the front and rear gardens of several local cottages, creating a somewhat fairy garden aspect.

Before beginning my journey, I stopped to admire Bockingford Steps, the most impressive building in the Bockingford hamlet.

It was once the Bockingford Arms, a public house that was popular with both mill workers and as a destination for works charabanc outings.

Walking down Hayle Mill Road brought me, of course, to Hayle Mill and my first information board.

Easily the mill with the highest reputation, Hayle Mill continued to make paper by hand long after all the other mills had automated and was still doing so up until its closure in 1987 - the last commercial mill in the country to make paper by hand.

The high quality of its paper made it much sought after - including, the board tells me, by the late Queen Elizabeth for conservation work in her library at Windsor Castle.

The present mill building, which was converted to housing in 2010, dates from 1808, but that was only the last mill on the site, with earlier versions dating from 1540.

Continuing down Hayle Mill Road, I pass the brick wall, where scores of millworkers have etched their initials over the decades, until I reach Upper Crisbrook Mill in Cave Hill.

Also now a family home, this mill is the best preserved in the Loose Valley and even has a working waterwheel, which now generates electricity for its owner.

The next intriguing building is named the Cowshed. Now a family home, it was once literally a cowshed.

Cattle were grazed on the field opposite - now known as Crisbrook Meadow and cared for by the Valley Conservation Society - and their milk was sold from Crisbrook House, which operated as a small dairy.

Opposite Crisbrook House are the remains of Lower Crisbrook Mill, demolished in the 1950s, but still boasting a fine water overshoot.

I’m heading now for the second information board, which I know is at the junction of Straw Mill Hill and Tovil Hill, but first, I take a slight diversion through the Woodbridge Drive play area.

Few people are aware that hidden behind the hedges is a war memorial dedicated to the Tovil Scouts who fell in the two world wars. Among the names listed there is that of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, the leader of the Dambusters Raid, and surely Tovil’s most famous Scout.

Close by the memorial is the cave, which was used by the Tovil Scouts in their early days as a chapel.

Sadly, the cave is now rigorously fenced off to protect intruders from possible rock falls.

On to the next information board, which reminds us that Tovil once had its own tram service to Maidstone that terminated here at The Rose Inn. Sadly, The Rose is no more, replaced by a block of flats called Rose Court.

Nearby, where now lies the Woodbridge Drive housing estate, was Upper Tovil Mill, more recently known as Reeds Mill. It finished as part of the huge Albert Reed papermaking empire, but had more humble beginnings.

As Straw Mill Hill, the nearby road name, suggests, this mill originally made paper neither from wood nor rags, but from straw. The process involved cooking the straw in an alkaline solution until the fibres separated to be used for the paper.

There was, however, a thick black sludge left over, which the mill owners disposed of where they could.

This is almost certainly the origin of the myth of the Tovil Treacle Mines, as the industrial waste probably did look like treacle bubbling up from the ground. Although I imagine it was a good deal less tasty.

Continuing up Tovil Hill, to the next information board at its junction with Church Street, I am reminded that off to my right was the site of Tovil Zoological Gardens.

Opened in 1914 by Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt Drake, the zoo was based at Tovil Court, one of the village’s few stately homes. The zoo was an immediate success, but the timing was poor, and the start of the First World War a few months later forced its closure.

The zoo didn’t reopen for 20 years, and Sir Garrad then relocated it to Cobtree Manor.

Today, Tovil Court has gone and has been replaced by Tovil Working Men’s Club.

The information board reminds us that Tovil once had seven pubs. Just one survives - The Royal Paper Mill immediately opposite.

Leaving aside the Bockingford Arms, there was also The Rose, The Victory, the Forester’s Arms, and the White Horse - all have vanished without a trace. But if you cross the road to the corner of the Hairy Bear hair salon, you can see one isolated fluted column - the last remaining vestige of a pub known as The Old English Gentleman.

My walk now takes me down Church Street to St Stephen’s churchyard. There is the next information board which tells me that, sadly, St Stephen’s church, which was built in 1840, was pulled down in 1990 after the building became unsafe.

Since then, there has been no church in Tovil, although public services of worship are held in the local school.

Nevertheless, the church still features prominently in Tovil’s collective memory.

The village sign features both an image of the church tower and of the cockeral weathervane that once adorned its spire.

Exiting the church yard, I cross over to Wharf Road and walk down towards the River Medway. On the green in front of Miller’s Wharf (again a clue in the name) is information board number four, which explains how the entire Bridge Mill Way housing estate was once home to the Bridge papermill.

Today, the only bridge is a pedestrian footbridge and a structure carrying utility piping, but there was once a railway bridge across the Medway here.

The bridge took goods trains from Tovil Station (which confusingly was on the north side of the river in Fant) to the Tovil Goodsyard that served the local paper mills, approximately where Albert Reed Gardens lies today.

If you peer across the river, you can see the graffiti sprawled on the remains of the bridge column.

The wharf here is a reminder that in the days before the railway, the rags for the mills and the paper being taken away used to come and go by barge on the Medway.

I say paper, although the noticeboard reminds me that Bridge Mill made many things over the years, including, tragically, gunpowder.

The gunpowder mill blew up in 1731, killing three people.

Today, the scene is dominated by Tovil’s newest block of flats, which is currently under construction.

Retracing my steps up Wharf Road and then right along Lower Tovil, I come to another brick column. This was one of the supports for the railway as it passed over the road at this stage.

I follow the road around until it becomes first Tovil Green and then Burial Ground Lane, which most people will know as the site of Tovil Tip.

It is also, as the name suggests, the site of a burial ground.

Now cared for by Tovil Parish Council, the burial ground was for members of the Anabaptist community. Forbidden from having their own church, these non-conformists used to worship at Tovil’s other great stately home - Bydews.

In the 1600s, Bydews was the residence of Simon Pine (or Pyne), who also owned Bridge Mill.

He bequeathed the land for the burial ground and was himself buried there in 1681.

The site, which has some of the oldest surviving gravestones in Maidstone, also has a memorial to Chilley Pine, a renowned medical officer in the British Army who risked his career to highlight to Lord Raglan the gross inadequacies of the Army’s treatment of wounded and sick soldiers during the Crimean War.

Sadly, Chilley Pine himself succumbed to typhus and is actually buried in Balaclava. The Tovil memorial was erected by his grateful fellow officers.

The burial ground also contains the grave of one Alexander Bassuck, who died in 1702.

The stone declares Mr Bassuck to have been a Freemason. At this time, Freemasonry was very much a secret society, and Mr Bassuck is the earliest known case of a Freemason openly recording their membership in this way.

My walk concludes here with the last of the information boards, but I feel Tovil has so much more to offer. Perhaps some further information boards are needed!