Tibberton Paper Mill operated on the north side of the village of Tibberton in the northern part of the Lilleshall Estate. In 2020 Dr Sian Thomas prepared an archaeological report about the site and described the historical background, largely based on M. Malley’s 2012 paper “Martin Billing and His Ownership of Tibberton Paper Mill” in “The Quarterly: The Journal of the British Association of Paper Historians”, 84, pp22–28:
“By 1653 a water powered iron slitting mill had been established at Tibberton, partially within the bounds of the site. Such mills produced small iron rods from larger previously forged iron bars, these were then used to produce nails (Malley, 2012). The mill was converted into a paper mill in 1804, with the 1814 Ordnance Survey map of East Shropshire and Staffordshire showing the mill next to a large pond. By 1816 the mill was producing white paper of fine quality, which was sold for use by artists, however, by 1830 it had begun to produce paper bags. In 1859 the mill was purchased by Martin Billing who by the end of the 1870s had expanded the mill, which produced grocery paper and middles and brown paper, replacing the water wheel with a steam powered turbine which was used to operate the machinery. The turbine also necessitated the construction of a 154ft chimney (Malley, 2012). The products of the mill were taken by road to Edgmond Wharf on the Shropshire Union canal, approximately 4.3km to the south-east, which provided access to Shrewsbury and the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction canal (Malley, 2012).”
Early in the 19th century paper was produced from old linen and cotton rags, but wood pulp gradually took over and accounted for the bulk of paper production in Britain by 1900. I’ve not yet been able to determine whether any wood fibre from the Estate was consumed by the Tibberton Paper Mill.
As you can see on the map below from 1900, the mill had its own gasworks and access to water from the mill pond to the east. It appears that the freehold of the mill site had been sold at some point, but some of its surrounding land were retained by the Estate and instead rented to the paper mill. At the time of the 1912 sale of Lilleshall Estate properties, the pond was part of Lot 153 “Green Farm” and “Martin Billing, Son & Co” was listed as the current tenant of the pond and the road leading to it. However, the mill also closed in 1912 and the site eventually became a horticultural nursery business.
Local historian Margaret Ford has two pages about the mill with early 20th century photographs, in turn drawing on “Changing Village: Life and Times of Tibberton and Cherrington in Shropshire” by Jim Barker.
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