Today we are launching our campaign to raise funds to help preserve and make available the Rex Wailes Collection. Read on to find out more about this significant collection and how you can help to conserve and make the gems in his collection publicly accessible. We received the Rex Wailes Collection after long-term talks with…
Tag: Collectors
Filter posts by tag:
New Collections 2018
Each year we submit a list of all our acquisitions to the National Archives. 2018 saw an interesting and varied array of collections and smaller donations arriving at the Archive. The total list of accessions for 2018 is available here. It includes: 14 new collections (22 boxes and 33.6 GB of data)11 significant additions to collections…
Milestone for millwrighting in the making
Development Assistant Lucy has just submitted an ambitious grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Read on to find out what we hope to save and the benefits that we hope to offer the mills community. Mill Makers: The Wright Records, is our latest grant application for an ambitious project that – if we are…
Building windmills on top of watermills: The Derek Ogden Collection
To celebrate #GivingTuesday, we are highlighting a collection available for adoption. Today’s collection is the Derek Ogden Collection. A millwright for many years, Derek repaired mills throughout the UK until he moved to the USA in 1974, continuing his mill work across the pond. His life’s work is documented in detail in the notes, photographs…
Rescue of one of the most important millwright collections
To celebrate #GivingTuesday, each week we will highlight a collection available for adoption. Collection adopters help secure the safety and availability of all the Archive’s images and documents for generations to come. Today’s highlighted collection is the Vincent Pargeter Collection. One of the most admired millwrights in recent years, Vincent’s sudden death shocked the mills…
New Year, New Collections
We’d like to say a big thank you to those who have adopted a collection in 2017. The New Year feels like the right time to look back at the difference that our supporters have made in looking after the Archive. We are also excited to announce that new collections have been added to the…
John Munnings’ Watermill Sketchbooks
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…
Explore Your Archive Week: Day 1
The annual National Archives’ ‘Explore Your Archive’ week is upon us, and we start with a focus on a collection belonging to, arguably, the foremost British molinologist of the 20th century, Rex Wailes OBE. Our library holds over 70 of Rex’s books and journal articles, each containing a wealth of knowledge; but it is his…
Happy World Chocolate Day!
So apparently it’s World Chocolate Day. Apart from making us crave some chocolate delights here at the Archive, it got us exploring the origins of cocoa grinding. A quick search of our catalogue shows some of the world’s mills that powered cocoa-grinding machinery. They were often used to extract cocoa butter from the pods, which…
Derek Stidder 1950 – 2017 RIP
We are very sorry to announce that Derek passed away on 26 June. He was diagnosed with cancer some years ago and bravely made light of his illness. Derek was a trustee of the Mills Archive from 2004 until his retirement in August 2015. As a trustee he helped us enormously with the Frank Gregory…