News about Welsh Mills
CALLING ALL MILL OWNERS
| Dear Mill Owner / Manager
TCMG Mill Insurance Survey The Traditional Cornmillers Guild has been aware for some years of the increasing challenges faced by mills in obtaining and retaining insurance for wind and watermills. It is becoming increasingly clear that insurers are less and less willing to insure the perceived and actual risks associated with mill buildings (including water courses associated with mills), machinery and public / product liability. The Guild has therefore decided to create a survey to obtain more information on the current position / situation mill owners face. This survey is open to all wind and watermills in the UK, mills in all states of repair, working or non-working. We invite you to complete the survey using the link below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PJR3339 The survey will be open until the 31st May 2025. We will then analyse the results and use this information to approach the main insurers currently being used by mill owners to explore their concerns and, we hope, encourage them to take a more realistic and reasonable approach to insuring the actual risks represented by our mills. We also intend to work with the SPAB and Heritage Alliance, to leverage the links they already have with the insurance industry in relation to listed buildings. We propose to explore potential measures which could reduce / control perceived and actual risks – all based on your feedback. All information shared will be treated as confidential and only survey summary data will be shared with insurers as part of any future discussions to further the aims of this project. Thank you in advance for your time and information. If you have any questions or need to contact someone in relation to the survey, please email tradmillers@gmail.com. |
Emma Williams (Y Felin) and Anne Parry (Felin Ganol) are interviewed by Lynn Bowles. To hear this interview click here.
Gerallt Nash is interviewed on BBC Radio Cymru about the 40th anniversary of the Welsh Mills Society. To hear this interview click here.
40th anniversary celebration at Blackpool Mill – October 2024
We held our 40th AGM at Blackpool Mill near Narbeth. 45 people attended and in the morning we had 3 talks. Gerallt Nash looked back over the last 40 years; Dafydd Wiliam chaired a lively discussion about the future of the Society. Lastly William McNamara (CEO of Bluestone Resorts Ltd) told us all about the history and restoration of the mill. After a delightful lunch we visited Carew Tidal Mill – lead by John Crompton. Closing tea was celebrated with suitably decorated cakes. Thank you to Hilary and Helen for the special cakes.
Alan Stoyel appeal
The Society has made a donation of £1000 from our reserve funds to the Mills Archive towards the archiving of Alan Stoyel’s extensive collection. Details of the appeal are to be found at https://new.millsarchive.org/campaigns/alan-stoyel-collection-appeal/
In making the donation we requested that the funds are used as much as possible on aspects of Alan’s collection that covers mills in Wales. Alan Stoyel’s notes on Welsh Windmills can be found here: https://catalogue.millsarchive.org/wales-8. If anyone would like to see any of these, the Mills Archive can send you digital copies. If there is any part of Welsh mill history you would like to see in Alan’s Collection, the Mills Archive would be very happy to locate it for you.
Cenarth Mill
In August, the Society visited the oft described ‘iconic’ Cenarth Mill. The owner, Martin Fowler, outlining his work renovating the Mill and his ambition to gain permission to restore the weir so that his wheel could turn again. WMS visited to discuss how the Society could support his case. A talk by Martin is available to view here.
In some instances, weirs have been removed to aid the up-stream migration of salmon.
During the day Martin had the opportunity to explain to NRW that without re-building the weir, water couldn’t enter his leat to turn the waterwheel, and NRW invited him to apply for the appropriate permit to abstract water from the river. Hence, after 30 years of discussions, Martin’s wheel is one step nearer to turning again.
Mucky Mills – Advising Mill Owners
WMS’s ‘mucky mills group’ visited Felin Isaf at Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire in July, at the request of Mark John who had bought the mill and adjoining mill house.
The site lies in a deep wooded valley and includes a length of the mill race which fed both Felin Isaf and another mill, now totally ruinous, some 400 metres downstream. We had expected to see a corn mill, but in spite of a few puzzling features, we were pretty sure that both had been woollen mills.
Having concluded that Felin Isaf had been a woollen mill, there were some surprising features. One was a timber frame attached to the roof truss at the north end, with a top bearing for a light vertical shaft, and a hinged wooden beam which in a corn mill would immediately be recognised as part of a sack hoist; these are not easily reconciled with a woollen mill. Nor are the twin pigstyes attached to the east side of the mill. Mark is building close relationships with local folk as he works to bring the site and adjacent mill house into habitable condition and is determined to build up a history of the mills.
If you would like help or advice with your mill, please get in touch with Tim Haines at membership.welshmills@gmail.com
Melin Llynon
Society member John Brandrick has produced new technical drawings of the internal arrangement of Melin Llynon corn mill in Anglesey. Rex Wailes – a founder member of the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings’ Mills Section (then ‘Watermills Section’) – described the mill in detail in 1937, within the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Buildings’ Inventory of Anglesey. John notes that aspects of the mill now differ from the 1937 description. His detailed observations can be found at www.milldrawings.co.uk.
For more information about these items of news, members can view the full articles in our latest newsletter here.