Welcome
Welcome to the home page of the Wessex Mills Group. The Group was formed in 2003 as a centre for the milling heritage of Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire. We meet regularly, often in one of our local mills, and we welcome new members and their guests. For membership and other information please find out more about us.
Next meeting
Our next meeting will be a visit to Saltford Brass Mill near Bristol on 7th August at 2pm. For more information see our Programme page.
Mill of the month
| This month's featured mill is Whitemill or White Mill, on the National Trust's Kingston Lacy estate, standing by the River Stour in the Domesday parish of Shapwick near Wimborne Minster in Dorset. Whitemill was last rebuilt in 1776. From that date the millstones remained in use for over one hundred years, grinding grain (or grist) for both flour and animal feed. | |
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The mill has been conserved to display its rare 18th century timber drive gear, which is now much too fragile ever to work again. It worked under water power until 1866, when a severe winter flood breached the diversionary works in the river so severely that they were deemed beyond economic repair. By this time the miller was also the local baker so, rather than simply closing the mill, he converted one half of it to run from a portable steam engine in order to keep his bakehouse supplied with flour. Commercial milling, however, appears to have ended with the flood. With the retirement of the last miller, around the end of the nineteenth century, the working life of the mill came to an end. |
| Photograph © copyright Andrew Borland. | |
