The Power Of Flour

Last time I left you by the church - in the lurch. Having just completed our whistle-stop tour of Houghton and ended up by the gates of St Mary's, I said that we were going somewhere else. And that "somewhere" was Houghton Mill, close by on the River Great Ouse, once the beating heart of the area's economy, but now in the care of the National Trust.

The reason we had half-an-hour to spare was because the way to see the mill is by signing up for a guided tour and ours was not till half past one. We filled some of our time by filling our tums - that is we had a scone and a cup of tea in the tearoom. Then I took Les to meet Potto Brown.

Potto is perhaps the most famous of all the millers who've called Houghton their home. I wrote about him here. "By Stargoose And Hanglands": A Man Called Potto. Although he made his money as a miller, he made his reputation because of his philanthropy (and perhaps his oddity). His bust stands right in the centre of the village.

We went back to meet our guide, but were greeted instead by a seemingly tame Pied Wagtail. Looking at her now I can see she's got food in her beak and, from her behaviour, I'd guess that she had a nest nearby and was trying to coax the young ones out into the big wide world for the first time.

Our guide turned out to be one of the volunteer millers who, on Sundays, operates the machinery. (yes, that's a toy rat perched on the brim of her hat!). Sunday is more of a family day with no guided tours, but plenty of children's activities and milling demonstrations. On balance I think we chose the better option in terms of which day to attend in order to see and learn about the mill.

She led us first outside to explain about the mill's history. She was an excellent guide and sprinkled the dry and dusty history of making flour with amusing anecdotes, mostly about her own "milling mishaps". Some of us gazed down into the still waters and tried to imaging the turbulent activity of yesteryear.

If you look carefully you can see that the lower part of the wall is built with small bricks which suggests that this was part of the Tudor mill, which has survived the fires and rebuilding of later times. But there's been a mill of some sort here for much longer than that.

We know there was a mill here in 974 AD and possibly more anciently than that. Of course nothing of that survives (except perhaps a tiny stream which was pointed out to us just a few yards from the present mill). But water mills were introduced to the British Isles by the Vikings and we know a little about their mills from what has been discovered on Orkney. Above is a model made by one of the volunteers here, a jovial chap called John whom we'd met in the car park, his humorous outlook had persuaded him to include many little jokes in the model. The boy sitting in the left corner is holding a toy aeroplane! Something to question the weekend's young visitors about.

More history emerged as we ascended the stairs - it would all have been rickety ladders at one time.

The document which reveals the mill's existence in 974 tells us that it was given in that year to nearby Ramsey Abbey, which had recently been founded. All the farmers of the area were forced to send their grain here, or else pay a fine to the Abbot. And when they did bring their crops here for milling they had to give a proportion of it to the Abbey as a tax called "multure". Furthermore the owners decided to dam part of the river to increase flow to the mill, which promptly led to the flooding of much of the village.

From the above you'll gather that Henry VIII was not alone when, in the 1530s, he decided he'd had enough of abbeys, monasteries and the like, and took them all into royal ownership. The mill passed to the Earls of Manchester who leased it to a succession of millers.

You might have noticed that all the machinery is made of wood. This is not only for cheapness, a single spark from metal on metal could have caused a serious fire and even an explosion in the dusty air. For the same reason there could be no naked flames for heat or light, which explains why there are so many windows. Lucky then that the busiest time was in summer.

At one time there were 120 mills along this stretch of river and Houghton was the most efficient having 10 sets of millstones driven by three waterwheels and producing a ton of flour every hour - though our guide admitted that she'd once had one set of stones running at the speed required for that rate of production and it was very scary indeed, the whole building shaking and vibrating and creating a tremendous noise. In its heyday several of the mill's staff were constantly employed in the maintenance of the structure and machinery. And if you look at the millstone, bottom right of the above photo...

You'll see some of these, or the holes where they might fit. These were to finely balance the millstones, since the last thing you wanted was stone rubbing on stone, damaging the stones and adding little bits of grit to the flour.

 

The tiny set of wheels resting on the right-hand millstone above is to demonstrate how the wheels fitted together. Technology moves on and steam-powered roller mills were introduced. Potto Brown was quick to spot the potential and built two huge mills nearby. The flour's not as good for you, but the profits were good for Potto Brown's bank balance - and eventually the local area, because Potto gave large sums for churches, schools and many other schemes to help the people.

This old mill was of course doomed by the advances in milling and having limped along for many years was closed down in the 1930s. The nearby residents bought the building and gave it to the National Trust. They opened it as a Youth Hostel till 1983 and according to those who stayed there it offered the coldest, most uncomfortable night's sleep to be had in any hostel.

The whole area was much-loved by artists and the NT has collected many paintings which it exhibits in the mill, giving an idea of how the mill looked over the ages. The one photographed here shows a small annex with a chimney - no one seems to know much about it, but it must have been a potential fire-hazard. The Trust's usually excellent web-pages of its exhibits fails to disclose who the artist was either,

Then it was back outside again, our enlightening tour over. Our guide urged us to visit the tearoom (well, they always do, don't they?) and recommended the scones which are made with flour ground in the mill on Sundays - having had one earlier I could second her suggestion.

And here's our little friend still trying to coax those babies from the nest. Perhaps she'll have more luck when all the tourists go home.

Take care.