Fulling was the process by which woven wool cloth was pounded and compressed, usually by water-powered wooden hammers, to thicken the fibres and make the fabric more durable and weather-resistant. It was skilled, industrial work, and the mills that performed it were once as essential to a community as a forge or a grain mill. The survival of the site as a recorded monument suggests that something physical remains, or remained, to mark where that process once took place.