The
Mills Archive Trust
held its second
workshop of the Frank Gregory Online
project at West Blatchington Mill,
Sussex, in April. This event showcased
this characterful molinologist’s vast
collection and MAT Volunteer, Elizabeth
Trout, presented a biography of Frank,
with information pieced together from
the myriad items of all sorts that he
stored away plus interviews with Frank’s
family and associates. Much of Frank
Gregory’s milling memorabilia has been
digitised and the originals returned to
the Weald & Downland Museum, Singleton.
Next, an application for Heritage
Lottery Funding is in the pipeline to
enable setting up a project to record
histories, industries, milling families
and peoples’ memories of the mills
which are known to have existed in an
area centered on Reading, loosely based
on Berkshire, part of South Oxfordshire,
part of South Buckinghamshire and part
of the River Loddon in Hampshire. A new
venture for MAT this mammoth task, which
has gained the support of many
societies and museums throughout the
area, has an eager team of volunteers
ready to start. MAT Volunteers are an
enterprising lot: Luke Bonwick has just
written a book charting the history of
Brill Windmill; David Neames is
compiling a book of windmills in art;
Guy Blythman’s next venture into print
will be a book on Oxfordshire windmills
which he is currently researching. Guy
has also alerted us to a National
Register of English Windmills in
Photographs he completed in 2002 which
records their type, state of repair and
location. It is available via his
website:
www.guyblythman..com.
Or write to him via email:
guy.blythman@talktalk.net
Meanwhile, keep up to date with what’s
concerning the mills world on the MAT
Blogsite via:
www.millsarchive.com.
Former
Curator of Textiles at the Victoria and
Albert Museum, Natalie Rothstein,
died earlier this year at the age of
79. She did a degree in the
Spitalfields silk industry and much of
what we all now learn about textiles is
due to her freely giving of her
knowledge and research to any student
and the information now with the V&A.
Did you know that you can visit the home
of a former Huguenot silk weaver in
Spitalfields? Denis Sever’s House
is at 18 Folgate Street, E1. And each
floor depicts the work and living
conditions of Mr Sever. Open only on
the 1st and 3rd
Sundays and Mondays (booking essential)
of each month. A taste of what to expect
can be found on
www.denissevershouse.co.uk
. For a sight of mechanised silk
weaving you have water powered machinery
doing just that at Hampshire’s own
Whitchurch Silk
Mill.
Two
Berkshire (former) watermills are now
for sale: Tidmarsh Mill, on the
River Pang, is famous for its brush with
the Bloomsbury Set artist, Dora
Carrington, has its waterwheel encased
in glass but no other machinery
existing. Asking Price: £1,995,000.
Sol Mill, Cookham, became a
recording studio under the ownership of
legendary recording engineer, Gus
Dudgeon; the likes of Cliff Richard and
Elton John are amongst the rock
luminaries to have recorded tracks
there. Asking Price: £3million. It’s
believed that all machinery was removed
long ago.
