| Adapted from The Miller, 1893 & 1896 |
| In the golden age of roller milling, a few exceptional country mills stood out not only for their technical advancement but for the character and ingenuity of the families behind them. Two such mills, Yare Mills at Great Yarmouth and Earsham Mills on the River Waveney, demonstrate how rural milling operations survived and thrived as flour milling entered the modern age. |
| Yare Mills, Great Yarmouth: A Towering Presence |
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| Yare Roller Mill with the Green Cap windmill attached. |
| Founded by the father of the Press Brothers, Yare Mills began life in 1851 as a towering nine-storey windmill with five pairs of stones. After completing his apprenticeship in North Walsham, the founder turned to milling following a spell in farming. Business boomed, prompting the addition of a steam mill which dressed and purified the meal initially ground by wind power. The windmill was later converted into a granary and silo tower for the adjacent roller mill. |
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| The Green Cap Windmill used as the wheat cleaning department. |
| Expansion continued across the road with the acquisition of a second, even taller eleven-storey windmill, Greencap Windmill, one of the highest in Yarmouth. Over time, a hybrid system evolved: 18 pairs of stones worked alongside twelve sets of porcelain and chilled iron rolls. But by 1886, the firm committed to full modernization and installed a complete roller system designed by W.R. Dell & Son. The result was Yarmouth’s first complete roller mill. This steam-powered mill was an engineering feat. It featured 20 Clark’s double roller mills, two horizontal engines, and six floors dedicated to grinding, purifying, and dressing. The dressing machinery by George T Smith, featured purifiers and centrifugals with one dusting reel. The main engine, built by Riches & Watts of Norwich, delivered 100 horsepower via a massive 16ft flywheel. The mill processed local Norfolk wheat and produced three grades of flour: patents, bakers, and low grade. |
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| An 1886 advert for the Smith Patent Purifier. |
| Adjacent buildings housed specialist equipment: a wooden stive room filtered dust and fluff through canvas pipes; the original windmill handled wheat cleaning across nine floors using graders, decorticators, and brush machines. Yare Mills’ layout showed how Victorian ingenuity blended traditional structures with new milling technology. |
| Earsham Mills, River Waveney: From Saxon Roots to Roller Innovation |
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| Earsham Mill, 1793. |
| Earsham Mills, set in the heart of the Waveney Valley’s wheat lands, traces its roots to Saxon times. The mill stood beside ancient earthworks and was already well-established by 1793 under Thomas Clarke, a formidable miller said to carry two 280lb sacks of flour, one under each arm. Like many millers of his era, Clarke combined flour milling with farming and baking, making the mill central to rural life. |
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| Thomas Clarke, miller of Earsham Mills, 1793, and his descendant Thomas Clarke who ran the mills a century later. |
| Ownership passed down the Clarke family, and in 1863 the Duke of Norfolk rebuilt the mill and installed eleven pairs of millstones powered by a waterwheel and a Riches & Watts horizontal engine. Flour was shipped by water as far as Newcastle. |
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| Earsham Roller Mills in 1893. |
| When Robert Harvey Clarke, a later family member, experimented with roller milling at his Waveney Mills in Yarmouth in 1877, he was convinced by its potential. He installed a similar roller plant at Earsham, again supplied by Whitmore & Binyon. The 1893 roller mill had a capacity of two sacks of flour an hour and a fully integrated layout. Clarke was also a keen fisherman, once landing a 12½ lb salmon trout and a 9 lb eel from the mill pool – further testament to the close bond between the mill and its natural surroundings. |
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| Sectional Elevation of Earsham Mills. |
| By 1900, the Marston family had taken over. Charles Marston won The Miller Challenge Cup in 1923, and the family remained until 1937. Business records from the 1940s reveal a diverse product range, showing the mill’s continued adaptation. |
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| 1940s invoice from Charles Marston Ltd. |
| Legacy and Preservation |
| This newsletter is based on articles originally published in Milling and Grain, the current title of Milling (founded 1891) the best of the Victorian milling journals and the only one which still exists. To read this month’s issue visit https://mymag.info/EN_latest |
