So I have come to the end of my initial three months interning at the Mills Archive. However, this is not goodbye, as I will be back in November to do further work on the roller mill project. This week has seen an exciting development in the project as the webpages are now beginning to…
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The surprising uses for flour sacks!
This week, I have been doing research on the final stages of the milling process, what happens to the flour once it has been bagged and taken away from the mills. As a part of this I’ve been looking at the history of advertising and different selling techniques, some of which have surprised me as…
Rare glimpse of Upminster Windmill suspended in the air
Upminster Windmill’s restoration project is certainly well under way, as these latest photos show! Millwright Willem Dijkstra has started to repair the tower, this includes the brick base forming the ground floor and the wooden smock tower with 4 floors of machinery. Amazingly, Willem, with just one assistant, jacked up the whole smock tower –…
A welcome visit from the London & South East Milling Society
This week has seen some different events take place in the Archive so I thought I’d provide a round-up of the week’s activities to give you a glimpse into what life is like working here here, and our first encounter with a particular group of millers… Those of you who read the blog from Monday…
Thomas Hardy and the World of Milling
‘Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change’. This quotation from Thomas Hardy could aptly be used to describe many people’s reaction to the change to roller milling, surprise. Before starting my internship here at the archive, I never thought I would be finding a connection between a Victorian novelist…
My final blog!
This is my final day at the Archive! It feels like yesterday that I was writing my first ever blog and getting to grips with work here, and now I’m saying goodbye. It has gone so unbelievably quickly! I’ve had such a great time over the past 12 weeks, I loved discovering all the gems…
William Cornwell and Sun Flour Mills
One of the categories that will be in the new roller milling webpages will be ‘Stories from the Archive’. Within this section, as may be expected, stories from the Archive will told. This will revolve around the collections that have a connection to the world of roller milling. This will include specific mills, individuals, milling…
WWII windmill cartoon mystery
A few weeks ago Ron gave me a fascinating World War 2 propaganda cartoon to look at. It features Mussolini balancing on the sails of a windmill, while Hitler is shouting up, “Well done Duce, but do not break the wings of the windmill”, which is written in Greek and English. The sails are drawn…
The mill cartoonist
Don Paterson was a prominent figure in the mill world, a widely respected man with a talent for wit and capturing a joke within a small cartoon. In 1982 he founded the North West Mills group along with our own Mildred Cookson, where he sat as chairman. Just reading through the early newsletters his passion…
Building a mill, without the twiddly bits
This week I have started to write up sections about the process of building a roller mill and have stumbled into a world of architecture I barely knew existed. Having the rescued Gelder and Kitchen files here at the Archive meant that I knew a bit about Sir Alfred Gelder, Gelder and Kitchen and the…