Remember the Knights Templar. Temple Mills echoes with tales of medieval agriculture and modern transport. Temple Mills stands on the boundary between Newham and Waltham Forest with a bit in Hackney.
Medieval Hackney needed mills. Temple Mills was a group of water mills. They belonged to the Knights Templar. These mills primarily ground corn. The corn came from the Templar’s lands in Homerton and the Marshes. The mills straddled the River Lea. This meant they were partly in Hackney and partly in Leyton.
In the 17th and 18th centuries Temple Mills took on other jobs. They ground rapeseed for oil. The mills processed leather. They made brass kettles. Workers twisted yarn. They also manufactured sheet lead.
Gunpowder production led to disaster. On Easter Eve in 1690 Peter Pain died in an explosion. Pain was a Huguenot refugee. The explosion destroyed two mills and three stone houses. A large quantity of gunpowder blew up too. Pain’s family and a French minister also perished.
Let’s fast forward to the railways. In 1896, the Great Eastern Railway opened Temple Mills wagon works. The site covered 23 acres. It lay east of the Stratford to Lea Bridge line. Wagons were previously built and fixed at Stratford Works. The Temple Mills site was less crowded.
In 1921, Temple Mills employed 800 men. They made 10 new wagons each week. They repaired 500 wagons weekly. The works also made steel frames for carriages. These frames went to Stratford Works for finishing. The site included a wagon erecting shop. There was a smiths shop plus fitting and machine shops. You would find wheel and steel frame shops. A straightening shop was also present. Sawmills prepared timber. Most wagons were wooden then. An Erith Timber Dryer prepared the timber.
Flooding struck in February 1919. In 1923, the London and North Eastern Railway took over. British Railways took over in 1948. Around this time the New Wagon Repair Shop was built. It had eight roads. Wagons moved via a traverser. Two older traversers dated back to Great Eastern days.
The 1960s saw designs for Freightliner and car-carrying wagons. Temple Mills scrapped many older wagons then. The works employed about 400 people.
In 1970, the works joined British Rail Engineering Limited. A New Road Van Shop repaired road vans and containers. It also fixed barrows. This shop stood just south of the works. The works adapted to handle longer wagons. These included Freightliner container flats.
The wagon works closed in 1983. Stratford Works and Temple Mills built 33000 wagons together.
The diesel repair shop closed in 1991. A small traction maintenance depot opened for EWS. It closed in 2007. Changes in the freight market made it unviable. The depot code was TD. The site is now Orient Way Carriage Sidings. It stables electric multiple units.
Today Temple Mills hosts the Eurostar depot. This 402 million pound depot maintains all UK Eurostar trains. It replaced the North Pole depot in 2007. This coincided with the opening of the new terminal at St Pancras.
Temple Mills depot has eight train roads. The shed is nearly 450m long and 64m wide. It stands about 12m tall. High-level walkways provide access to services and facilities. Temple Mills has transformed from medieval mills to a key transport hub.