Description:preparation of condensed milk in the old mill building at Fole Dairy.
Fole dairy occupied the site of Fole Mill, originally built in 1771 for Henry Copestake. The Dairy opened in the 1920s and was originally owned by Co-operative Wholesale Society (C.W.S.) Milk Group, and produced milk and cream. In 1995 management passed to Associated Co-operative Creameries, and finally in 2006 to Dairy Farmers of Britain (D.F.B.). At the time the Dairy closed on 31 March 2009 it employed 246 people.
Further research by Jim Foley:
There is evidence of a water mill at Fole over four hundred years ago. In the National Archives there is a record that in 1553 William Windsor, Lord Windsor, brought a suit against a distant blood relative James Blunt, Lord Mountjoy about land and a water mill at Fole, Totton i.e. Toot Hill in Checkley. It was claimed that Sir Walter Blount acquired the disputed manors and lands including a water mill in 1471-2 and an agreement to that effect was entered into at the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster in the Hillary term.