Built on the site of an earlier, smaller flour mill, which itself replaced an iron forge—one of many in the Crawley area—it fell into disuse in the 1930s.

The Lord of the Manor owned the section of Ifield Brook (a tributary of the Mole) which ran from the furnace at nearby Bewbush, 1 mile (1.6 km) to the southwest.

He was regularly imprisoned for his religious beliefs over the next 25 years, even though Ifield was a hotbed of Nonconformism (being the site of one of the first Quaker meeting houses in the world).

[8] The Middleton family owned the mill and its associated buildings outright by this time; another prosperous local businessman, Leonard Gale, bought it in 1715.

[10] Despite its efficient output, the mill fell into disuse in the 1810s after London-based businessman Abraham Goldsmid bought it in 1809.

A decorative stone tablet with the date 1683 and the initials of Thomas Middleton and his wife Mary was salvaged and mounted on the exterior.

The water supply began to fail as the brook's flow became weaker, and in 1848 the mill pond was cut in half by the building of the railway line to Horsham.

[3] Gradual decline continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries; the mill passed through many owners, and even one long-established family of owner-millers, the Hardings, struggled.

The mill stood unused, apart from for storage, and nominally for sale until Crawley Borough Council used a compulsory purchase order to buy it in 1974.

The work took eight years—much longer than the original estimate of three, although large donations of money paid for many interior fittings which had not been taken into account.

[13] Three staircases, the board cladding on the inside walls and the wooden floors were all renewed, and all windows were refitted to their original design.

Some unemployed people enrolled in a job creation programme were briefly used, but no professional engineers, construction personnel or other qualified workers were employed at any time during the eight-year process.

Efforts have been made to improve the ecological and wildlife balance of the mill pond and the surrounding area.

[20] The mill hoist, whose surrounding timberwork and brickwork was found to be very badly corroded during the restoration,[14] projects from the north face.

[16][22] The mill house and cottage were also bought by the council as part of their land acquisition programme, and have been leased to private tenants since then.

[12] An illustration of the water mill was painted by the artist, Denys Ovenden, in 2015 and shows a scene from 1848 when the railway between Crawley and Horsham crossed the millpond on a wooden trellis viaduct.