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Part of Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society Website design : Simon Potter
Sussex Mills Group
IL 1831
Sussex Mills Group
Sussex Mills Group
Sussex Mills Group

Website Design : Simon Potter

For many years the Mills Section of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has organised National Mills Weekend (formerly "National Mills Day"), a celebration of Britain's milling heritage.

  SPAB Mills Section Logo

Wind and water are sustainable power sources, used for hundreds of years in Britain in the production of natural food.

There are currently more than 100 working mills capable of producing natural, stoneground flour and many of these will be open to the public during National Mills Weekend. In addition, over the weekend, a further 300 mills throughout the country will be welcoming visitors.

SPAB's Windmill Committee was formed in 1931 in response to an alarming decline in the numbers of the country's windmills. Later it included watermills within its interests, and it "encouraged the art of country milling". Still active today the SPAB is the only national amenity society dedicated to the protection of our milling heritage.

Some working mills are more than 300 years old yet still efficiently doing the job in the 21st century that they were built and designed for.

National Mills Weekend 2024 : Saturday 11th & Sunday 12th May.

Some mills work as commercial businesses, while others are run by enthusiastic volunteers. Fifty years ago, the windmills and watermills of this country were thought to be in terminal decline, but now there has been a renaissance in these wonderful reminders of our past.

 

In Sussex, windmills and watermills have not only produced meal flour, but have made gunpowder as those at Battle, or pumped water like the Coultershaw Beam Pump that once pumped water into Petworth.

Many watermills in Sussex produced a variety of products such as linseed oil, cattle cake, oil dressed leather and drove fulling stocks for fulling wool.

Today in Sussex, most of those that have survived are those that produced meal flour.

Many mills will be making contact using Amateur Radio volunteers

 

Morris dancers Stone Cross Windmill
Morris dancers at Stone Cross Windmill
Photo by David Jones
 
Open Day at Nutley Windmill :  Photo by Nick Linazasoro
Open Day at Nutley Windmill : Photo by Nick Linazasoro



Sussex Mills Group logo

Sussex Mills Group

Sussex Mills Group

Sussex Mills Group

Sussex Mills Group

National Mills Weekend

High Salvington

Nutley

Polegate

Punnett's Town

Stone Cross

Sheffield

Jill