The River Tillingham flows through the English county of East Sussex.
It meets the River Brede and the eastern River Rother near the town of Rye. A navigable sluice controlled the entrance to the river between 1786 and 1928, when it was replaced by a vertical lifting gate which was not navigable. The river provided water power to operate the bellows of an iron works at Beckley Furnace, used to make cannons for the Royal Navy between 1578 and 1770, when it became uneconomic, and a water mill which replaced it, until that burnt down in 1909. The lower reaches supported a thriving shipbuilding industry from the early nineteenth century onwards, and although on a smaller scale, was still doing so in 2000.
The river at Beckley
The vertical lifting gate at Tillingham Sluice, viewed from the upstream side
The River Brede is an English river in East Sussex. It flows into the Rock Channel and then onto the River Rother at Rye, Sussex. It takes its name from the village of Brede, which lies between Hastings and Tenterden.
The river to the west of Winchelsea
River Brede as it passes through Rye
Brede Sluice in 2009 looking inland. The gates prevent the free movement of fish, which contributes to the river's poor water quality rating.