Last year, the William Scott Abott Trust received over £1 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the watermill on the farm and country centre site. You can watch a fascinating clip of a time-lapse video showing the recent restoration work taking place so far on the site in Cambridgeshire. Each day the installed…
Author: Liz Bartram
Merry Christmas from MAT!
It’s been an eventful year, with new collections and new people joining us at the Archive. We’ve seen a swell in our material created by the acquisition of new archival items: The Roy Gregory CollectionThe David L Pearce CollectionThe Muggeridge CollectionRoland W Smith and additional Ken Farries material We also came to rescue of hundreds…
New artworks donated to the Archive
This week we received two new contrasting additions to our artwork. One is an impressive pencil drawing of Ramsey Mill in Essex, the other a striking watercolour. The pencil drawing’s artist is Christine Slade and the image is dated as 1985. The second piece of artwork is a water colour painting of Burton Dassett Mill…
£80,800 grant to restore Windmill Hill Windmill
We are delighted to announce that our Heritage Partner the Windmill Hill Windmill Trust has been awarded £80,800 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The grant will be used to restore the machinery and sweeps at Windmill Hill Windmill in Sussex. Starting this month, the project will be led by volunteers from the community, who…
Green fingers
Mills Archive staff and volunteers turned their efforts to gardening rather than milling on a rather drizzly weekend. A few of us came to help with the planting of bulbs in the newly landscaped garden of Watlington House, where we are based. The disappointing wet weather was offset by the pastries, mince pies and mulled…
Jumping mill man
Tom Hine has been on the case again and has drawn my attention to an unusual postcard. Sent in 1985, I’m particularly taken with this image on the front of the postcard. It’s refreshing to see a contrasting and more modern image incorporating a mill – in this case Brill – in addition to the…
From one mill stalwart to another
Volunteer Tom Hine has just found a postcard in our unsorted material involving two mill heavyweights – none other than Syd Simmons and Donald Muggeridge. The postcard, depicting the intriguingly-sailed Haverhill Mill, was sent in August 1933 to Syd Simmons, from none other than fellow mill enthusiast and photographer Donald Muggeridge. Donald remarks upon the disappointing,…
Training workshop success
Yesterday we ran our first ever training workshop on caring for your collection. This workshop was designed for those charged with the responsibility of looking after a mill’s own collection of images and documents. We covered topics such as the importance of keeping records in the first place, how to organise and record what you…
Angels at Oldland Windmill
Congratulations to all the volunteers at Oldland Windmill in Sussex! Last night they were awarded English Heritage’s prestigious Angels award. The winners of the 2014 English Heritage Angel Awards were announced at an awards ceremony held at The Palace Theatre in London on 3 November 2014. The Oldland volunteers won the award as the “English Heritage Followers’…
New training workshop
Our new training workshop – Caring for your Collection – is being held at the Archive next week. Preparations are well under way, as you can see in the photo taken in the Founders’ Room. We gained this room earlier in the year and have designed it to comfortably accommodate training workshops and other meetings…