By then she had formed the Mills Archive Trust, the World’s first specialist archive collecting and caring for records of milling history from around the world. The Archive, now with 235 collections holding more than three million records, has been recognised by the UK authorities as a National Centre of Excellence. Mildred has a particular interest in traditional millwrighting and in the development of the modern milling industry from the middle of the 19th century. She is the lead trustee for the archive in both these areas.
Mildred has a monthly column in Milling and Grain magazine on the Mills Archive Trust, the column features information about national mills and their histories as well as delightful images which the Mills Archive Trust gather and then restore.
How did you become involved in milling in the first place was it something you wanted to do right from leaving school?
I was born and lived in Lancashire in the North of England and was surrounded by 14 windmills. When I was 15 my interest started while cycling over to the nearest mill where an engineer was repairing the mill. I quickly realised that this was something I really wanted to get involved with.
Walter, the engineer, taught me to cut out and pitch wooden cogs for the different gear wheels and to learn how to set up millstones and do the stone dressing. After getting married I moved to Reading. I enjoy sketching and painting and found a derelict windmill a few miles away that looked very sad. Here I met a millwright who asked me if I wanted to help; for the next nine years I helped in the repair.
He mentioned a watermill that needed a miller. Although I really wanted to work at a windmill, after seeing the beautiful medieval mill with wooden machinery I fell in love with it. After a few months’ apprenticeship he let me loose. Everything went well, but handling everything, including broken cogs, changing paddles on the waterwheel and buying the grain was no easy matter. But I enjoyed every minute of maintaining and running this exceptional watermill as a commercial enterprise.
Can you explain a little about how unusual - or otherwise - it was for a woman to enter what must have been largely a male-dominated world?
I was the only woman watermiller in the UK for the whole time I milled. I set up, with four of my male contacts, the Traditional Corn Millers Guild, so I was accepted without any question. The Guild exemplified how a traditional mill should be run. The miller would be Master Miller and train on any apprentices. I always say to anyone who calls themselves a miller to say that again in 10 years time, if they are still going then they are millers!
Most give up as it is too hard a job in the traditional mill world. Not only learning all the basic skills of milling to keep the mill up and running every day, but also all the environmental issues, trading standards etc. I was only milling 40 tonnes a year, quite a small amount compared to modern mills, but this was appreciated by the local bakers, and heath food shops and farmers’ markets.
Becoming a miller is not straightforward, as we all know. How did this happen for you and what training did you receive?
I came into milling through love of mills and by being in the right place at the right time. I love how they work, and felt by being ‘totally green’ I was helping in some small way to help the planet. Milling organic wheat, rye, by waterpower, what better way?
My training was done by trial and error after a few months of learning from the millwright how to run the mill. There is no better way to get to know your mill than by looking and listening to the mill, it will tell you if things are not running smoothly and you can correct it.
Running the mill on my own, and doing the maintenance myself, meant there was only me to blame if things did not work out right. So I quickly learned the feeling of the mill and we made a great team.
How many mills have you worked at and what are some of the memorable developments you recall?
I worked on the repair of the oldest smock windmill in the country at Lacey Green, and then at Mapledurham Watermill. I have also run one of the oldest post mills in the UK at Outwood, Surrey.
This was amazing, it made you realise just how hard a job of running a windmill is, having to change the sails according to the strength of the wind, having to stop the mill to do this perhaps five or six times a day. As the body of the mill rotates with the wind you can find yourself looking in the opposite direction leaving the mill at the end of the day, quite disorientating!
You are now a Trustee of the Mills Archive Trust in the UK. What encouraged you to become involved in the Archive and its establishment? Why should millers and those connected to milling support the Trust?
I was concerned over my own large collection of mill material, covering everything from wind and watermills, animal powered mills, forges, paper, gunpowder, and quite a substantial amount of roller mill material.
There was nowhere for this to go in the future, so with three other friends who had similar problems, the Archive was born. There is so much information and material out there which would all be lost if the Archive did not exist. Roller mill material is also now in danger of being lost for ever. This must not happen and the Archive is here to look after this vulnerable material for the foreseeable future for the next generations to learn and enjoy this amazing subject.
Do you see the role of the Mills Archive Trust growing internationally and why? And in your view how important is it for the future in being able to understand our past?
The Archive is growing in strength daily and we now are growing internationally, with more than 75,000 catalogue and website visitors a year from around the world. Milling started with hand mills, not only in the UK but also in Africa, India the Far East and spread so it is only natural that milling has developed across the globe and an understanding of how this happened is so important.
The story needs telling, and the Archive is the place to do this.
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