K.H. Rogers, in Wiltshire And Somerset Woollen Mills, published by the Pasold Research Fund Ltd., in 1976, noted:
Corsley: Bissford
In 1746, James Cockell, a dyer, took a lease from Lord Weymouth of a house and land at Bissford. It was almost certainly a part of it that stood ‘a convenient and well accustomed dyehouse, with three furnaces, two vats, and fire stove’ which was advertised for sale in the same year. When the lease was renewed in 1779, it was to James’s sons, John and James Cockell of Chapmanslade, clothiers. They and a third brother, Nicholas, were all described as superfine clothiers in the 1790s. They were still in business in 1810, when wool was stolen from workshops they occupied at Chapmanslade, but later they ‘declined business’ according to Richard Harris. The lease of the Bissford dye-house fell in in 1829 on the deaths of John and Nicholas, and the renewal to another party in 1832 shows that the buildings had been converted into a dwelling house.
WRO, 845, lease books;
SJ, 18.8.1746, 2.7.1810;
BJ , 28.7.1746.