These resources are outputs of the Mills Archive Trust’s Reading EmPOWERed project. We are very grateful to all those involved, and would like to acknowledge Megan Phillips, Katie Dawson, Amelia Nicholsby, Susan Ing, Polly Bodgener, Jaahnavi and Olive who have donated their time and efforts to produce this work.
At the Mills Archive Trust, as our name suggests, our beginnings were solely focused on mills and all things milling. However, in recent years we have become concerned with two other themes: Renewable Energy and Feeding the World. Like milling, these topics are affected by our global climate crisis, and hold important historical lessons, providing we can glean them from the records.
The Reading EmPOWERed project, funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund (with thanks to lottery players), is a two-year endeavour that explores the evolution of mills to modern renewable energy, as well as the role that these structures can play in combating climate change. With help from our local community and beyond (in the form of volunteers, interns, universities and other organisations), our aim is to interpret our records on wind- and water-power in novel, diverse ways.
These resources are examples of this. We hope they are helpful: click on each button to see more.
If you would like to find out more about the project or get involved yourself, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
