Don Paterson was a great lover of Lancashire mills with roots at Bretherton. In 1982 he and Mildred Cookson decided to start up a North West Mills Group with Don as the chairman. They produced a newsletter of which Don was the editor until 2000, he then went on to produce the annual review for…
Roy was a serious student of the history and conservation of windmills since 1974 when he took responsibility for the windmill in Skidby in East Yorkshire. His wide research led to his books “East Yorkshire Windmills” (1985) and “Windmills in Yorkshire” (2009) with Laurence Turner. He published “The Industrial Windmill in Britain” in 2005 and…
Author: Nigel Birch I have been volunteering at The Mills Archive for 18 months or so, having previously known little about the milling industry, its historical and social influences, and variety of methods employed. I now know a little more than I did – but am far from being an expert! Volunteering at the Archive…
Author: Pru Barrett Pru, one of our volunteers, often comes across records of interesting and oft-times eccentric people during her research… Whilst recording the many histories of millers in our collections, I came across a very flowery yet fascinating epitaph for a man named Alfred Jermy, also known as “The Old Miller of Sidestrand and…
Authors: Christopher Viney and Lydia Smith Before wind and water were harnessed, the strength of people and animals was used to power mills. Animal power Rotary Querns were crucial to the development of animal mills. From there it was possible to make the first step from replacing human power with other sources. Animal-powered mills could be…
by Lydia Smith and Christopher Viney Fundamental changes in the ways mills worked and the effects they had on people’s lives were mirrored by the rapid development in photography from the middle of the 19th century. Several of our gems illustrate how photographs changed while capturing sometimes fleeting moments. See some of the early photography…
Author: Orla Taylor-Davies I first heard of the Mills Archive when my mum sent me a photo of an article in the local paper about the Archive’s funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. As a student of History and History of Art, I am always seeking volunteer roles in the cultural heritage sphere, so I…
Authors: Nathanael Hodge & Laura Felton-Hustwitt The John Munnings Collection contains detailed watermill sketches by artist John Munnings, together with his notes and the typescript for a book. John Munnings (1916-1987) was the son of a miller and nephew of the artist Sir Alfred Munnings. He was born at Mendham Mill, Suffolk, and his planned book is full of…
Author: Sheila Viner Well known to many hundreds of mill and industrial history enthusiasts in Britain and the Continent, John Silman died last week. He was a founder member of the Hampshire Mills Group and was at the forefront of mill related research and restoration, serving on the S.P.A.B. Mills Section Committee and a keen…
Author: Laura Felton-Hustwitt For the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to look through and catalogue two of John Munnings’ watermill sketchbooks. Containing 143 sketches of water mills from all over the country, it was a long but worthwhile process scanning and recording each and every page. My job was to add the…
