It’s all about Trust

Trust is in the name. We at The Mills Archive Trust are proud to have received so much of it from you over the last 20 years. You make it possible to meet the run-of-the-mill costs of keeping our heritage free and accessible. To keep up the good work for our third decade, we need your help.

Your generous donations make it possible to overcome the behind-the-scenes costs of running our nationally accredited archive and study centre.

For every box (or suitcase) that reaches us, there is a palpable excitement to uncover its contents. Priceless pictures and documents? Original artworks and artefacts? We want to share these treasures with you, not let mysteries pile up on our doorstep.

But before we can make our milling heritage available to the public, we must get it through the door. This costs £2,300 a month — really. We need to rent the space for our Archivist and volunteers to unbox, clean, organise, catalogue and repackage each item. Times this by thousands of items each year, they have their work cut out for them.

With over 3 million items in our archive, we can thank the collectors for gifting their vast knowledge to the public. Offsite storage is essential to preserve all of their achievements in climate-controlled conditions, which will cost at least £4,000 this year.

Our mission to make their work readily accessible for free will cost a great deal more. With over 90,000 entries in our digital catalogue and counting, we aim to share our passion for mills and milling online for the entire world to access. But to maintain our catalogue alone will require £6,000 this year.

It is an honour to be trusted to guide our milling records from our door to you through our digital and physical archives.

To stay ahead of the ongoing costs needed to preserve our heritage on this journey, we need your help…

 

…to secure our familial threads

Your support can keep our doors open in Watlington House, Reading, so we can continue to preserve the milling legacies of remarkable people. Everyone should be able to view the tapestry of milling heritage woven by these pioneers no matter the distance to our archive in Reading.

Find out how you can support us to protect the memory and impact of our milling pioneers in Watlington House. 

…because the sky’s the limit

To match the determination of our milling pioneers in growing their collections, help us to maintain and expand the space for their achievements in our airfield-turned-archive.

Discover how you can provide the space to protect more of our milling heritage. 

 

…to stop the rot

Our Archivist and volunteers work tirelessly to preserve priceless images and documents. But unending daily tasks mean daily costs. Help us to fight decay and save our milling heritage.

Read more about how you can prevent our milling heritage from falling victim to decay. 

…to find our missing millers

Technology gives us the power to solve milling mysteries faster than ever. Help us to maintain our digital catalogue so future generations can continue to make discoveries and shed light on the world of milling.

Find out about how your support will uncover the lost lives of milling for the entire world to see.

 

 

 

…to reach a sea of opportunity

Each collection that reaches us is filled with untold knowledge and stories, but their journey is not over. To care for them from our door to the sea of knowledge in our digital archive, we rely on your generous donations.

To learn more about how you can keep our shared heritage flowing to the public, click here.

From Watlington House to the world through our digital archive, we have been entrusted to care for our irreplaceable milling heritage. Help us to make the stories of our collectors, from millers to millwrights, engineers to enthusiasts and architects to artists, safe and available for everyone to learn from and enjoy. 

Alternatively, you can find information about donating by cheque or bank transfer by clicking here.


 

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