KING

Born Buckand Monachorum, Devon
Christened 10 Feb 1802, Buckland Monachorum, Devon
Died 15 Feb 1875, Butshead Mills, St. Budeaux, Devon
Buried 19 Feb 1875, St. Budeaux Churchyard
Walter King recorded as miller, Butts Head mills in Morris & Co Commercial Directory and Gazetteer 1870 in the entry for St Budeaux. However, the 1851 Census for Devon lists the family in Horrabridge, where he is described as a millwright. In the baptism records for his children, he is described as a miller.
The accounts of the Phoenix Mill at Walkampton show payments to a Walter King in 1833, as follows:
16th Dec 1833 James Shortridge & Walter King for making and erecting a new Water Wheel at the Phoenix Mill - Walkhampton - as Pr Contract - £79 10s

Do. a new frame & Hatch to regulate the water & other extras - £2 17s 6d

16th Dec 1833 Shortridge & King reced for an Oak Tree...out of which the main shaft of the Phoenix Mill Water Wheel was formed - £10 11s 6d

The following is a transcript from a book on river traffic on the river Tamar: Merry, Ian D. (1980) The Shipping and Trade of the River Tamar, parts 1 and 2. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

"Then comes Budshead creek running southwards off Tamerton Lake, with Budshead quay a few yards to the west. Near the mouth of the creek was Budshead tidal mill with a six-acre tidal pool. Budshead Mill with Budshead farm adjoining was a good customer of the barges until it closed in 1924. There had been a mill on this site for centuries. A tripartite agreement dated October 10th, 1791, records a syndicate based on Plymouth, leasing 'all those Water Griest Mills called Budshead Mills, and the Gardens, Fields and Quay to the said Mills belonging'. Within three years the syndicate undertook to 'expend the full sum of five hundred pounds in erecting ..... a good and substantial Water Griest Mill or Mills with three pairs of stones' for grinding wheat and barley and for stripping and grinding oats, all 'drove or worked by one or more water wheels'. The details are instructive as an illustration of the variety of cargoes such mills provided for the river's barges and smacks. The syndicate constructed the three-storied mill entirely of wood, said to have been as good and as hard when the mill was demolished as it had been when new, some 140 years before.

The last miller at Budshead was Harold Doney, a well-loved Tamar personality, whose daughter, Miss Margaret Doney, now living at Tamerton Foliot, has supplied the documents and most of the information about the mill and its important connections with barges and bargemen. The Doney family hailed from Lerrin, near Lostwithiel, where they had been millowners and bargemasters. The Budshead Mill was leased by the family in 1887 and MrGeorge Ide, who with his father worked for Harold Doney for many years, recalls a sail loft in Budshead Mill full of ropes, blocks, sails and heavy barge gear. There were a number of similar tide mills on the Tamar and its tributaries, all of them depending on river-borne transport and they offered work for barges and ketches well into the 20th century until, gradually smothered by economic and social changes, they closed one by one."


His will (written 10 July 1871) was proved on 4 Mar 1875 and probate granted to his two sons. Legacies of one hundred pounds each are given to his daqughters Ann and Elizabeth. All his freehold property consisting of a meadow and barn and adjoining premises at Burraton "now in he occupation of Mr Samuel Hoare as tenant", is bequeathed to son William.

Alias Mary KING
Born 1805, Whitchurch, Devon
Christened 30 Apr 1805, Whitchurch, Devon
Died 8 May 1869, Butshead Mill, St. Budeaux, Plymouth
Buried St. Budeaux Churchyard