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A Pandora’s box that contained toxic tobacco. This Gem is a miller’s snuff-box, inlaid with a beautiful and intricate windmill design, as well as some mother of pearl. Snuff boxes such as this could be highly detailed and would require the skilled work of silversmiths, jewellers and enamelers. According to the engraving, this one comes…
This sketch was drawn by the eccentric and enigmatic Karl Wood, only two years before he was sent to prison. This sketch is from the Karl Wood Collection: it forms part of a project which he called Mühlendämmerungs, or Twilight of the Mills. It was a series of attractive ink sketches capturing the twilight era of Britain’s mills, from…
One of the oldest books in our collection, a guide for centuries of millwrights. This fascinating Gem is an enormous folio-sized book called the Theatrum Machinarum Universale of Groot Algemeen Moolen Boek, which translates as the Universal Theatre of Machines or Large General Mills Book. It was produced by Johannis van Zyl and Jan Schenk as a reference…
Some mills have miraculous powers. This postcard was produced by the Belgium publisher Marco Marchovici in the early 20th century. The illustration is of elderly women entering the ‘Mill of Old Age’ on the right. On leaving the mill they have been transformed into glamorous young ladies. In the middle of the mill there is…
After a lifetime of milling, William Cornwell was presented with this attractive certificate. This attractive certificate was presented to William Cornwell in 1926 on his retirement, as a mark of appreciation for his work. By the time of his retirement in 1926, Cornwell had become Managing Director of Sun Flour Mills in Bromley by Bow,…
“You worked blindly and towards an unknown end; but your end was certain.” This beautiful watercolour is from a collection by Frank Brangwyn and Hayter Preston. The collection consists of a number of watercolours of different windmills, each with poetic anecdotes, which make up a beautiful and moving series exploring the state of milling and…
‘By a piece of singular good fortune, no one was killed.’ This book called A Train Errant shines a light on a little-known aspect of the First World War. The book contains a bound collection of newsletters called The Orderly Review, which were published on board Great War Ambulance Train No.16, which was donated to the war effort by the…
“It was then that she heard the bloodcurdling screams of her stricken husband.” This contemporary sketch was sold following a miller’s brush with death. The caption describes what is happening in the picture, as well as the reason for the sketch: Toot Hill WindmillIn the Parish of Stanford Rivers, Essex,Shattered by Lightning, June 18 1829,This sketch sold…
An American frigate lost and found. This sketch of Chesapeake Mill is by John Munnings, the nephew of Sir Alfred Munnings, the controversial President of the Royal Academy who was famous for his paintings of horses. However, as these sketches show it was not just Sir Alfred with an artist’s eye. John was born the son of a miller…
A supposed French invasion craft designed to cross the channel during the Napoleonic Wars. In the late 1790s, Britain was gripped by the scare of an invasion by the infamous French warlord Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the channel he was amassing his forces; rumours of his conquests were rife and everyone knew he had set his…
