In the 15th century, the mill was owned by John atte Lee, and in the 16th by Sir Edmund Walsingham; in 1599 it was sold to George Austen.

The present timber-framed building, built around 1750 by John Mildred of Guildford, was unusual in that it originally housed two separate mills, each with its own waterwheel and machinery.

[3] In danger of being demolished with its timbers sold off and the land marketed as building plots, Peggy Pollard, alias Bill Stickers, and Brynhild Catherine Jervis-Read, alias Sister Agatha, of Ferguson's Gang, persuaded the Godwin-Austen trust to donate the watermill to the National Trust on the understanding that the Gang would raise the money for its repair and future running costs.

The repair was supervised by the conservation architect John Eric Miers Macgregor OBE who went on to become an important member of Ferguson's Gang and was given the pseudonym "The Artichoke".

The titular head of the Godwin Austen Estate, Major Arthur Godwin-Austen was admitted to the Gang and given the pseudonym of "The Pious Yudhishthira".

[5] Originally each half of the mill had two pairs of millstones, the eastern sets were used to produce high quality flour for the domestic market.