The material belonging to the SPAB Mills Section Collection, one of our four Foundation Collections, has now been reunited at its new home at the Mills Archive.
Back in 2003 the first half of the collection was accessioned in the archive. This half contained collections by various prominent molinologists and members of the Mills Section – Rex Wailes and E. M. Gardner among others – who had deposited their work with SPAB over many years. The remaining collection continued to be housed at Spital Square and was itemised by Luke Bonwick, with the list of material available on our catalogue
Last week the second half was deposited by courier at The Mills Archive and our Archivist Nathanael has been spending this week repackaging the contents of 25 boxes, containing upward of 750 files, into archive boxes. The collection contains files of research notes, correspondence and photographs on individual UK wind and water mills and essentially work undertaken by the Mills Section, one of our Archive Patrons, over many years.
Of particular interest is a 1929 windmill survey, which led to the creation of the Mills Section. Here is a photo of one of the pages in the survey:
These files will be housed in our specially-fitted archive store and are available to visiting researchers.
