Stotfold Mill History

Thousand Year Time Line

The Four Stotfold Watermills

A watermill has stood at this point on the River Ivel for about a thousand years. It is one of four Stotfold mills listed in the 1086 Domesday Book, and is notable for being the last working watermill in the Bedfordshire town of Stotfold. Research by local historian Bert Hyde uncovered that by 1707, two had remained working while the other two had long disappeared. Maps from 1765 confirm two mill sites, later known as Taylors Mill and Randalls Mill. Interestingly, both of these watermills were referred to as "Stotfold Mill" at various times in history. On the 1765 map, Taylors Mill is not named whilst Randalls Mill is called the "Upper Mill". There are later references to this mill being the "Old Mill" while, in 1869, the Post Office directory gave the name as "Stotfold Mill". Delivery notes issued in 1876 by John Randall, the Mill owner at that time, were also headed "Stotfold Mill".

The Randalls were an old-established Stotfold family and a young John Randall was sent to be trained as a miller at Jordans Mill, near Biggleswade. He eventually took over Randalls Mill in 1876, first renting it from Charles Vaughan and subsequently buying it outright upon the owner's death. Randall began making substantial improvements to the Mill, having a steam engine installed for additional power, the 65ft chimney built, and machinery replaced. Renowned Suffolk millwrights Whitmore & Binyon supplied the millwork in the late 1890s, new stones were fitted, and John Lampit of Hemel Hempstead installed an 8ft diameter overshot waterwheel in 1897, replacing the previous undershot one. Fitted with bucket paddles and 14ft wide, it is believed to be the widest corn-mill waterwheel in the UK.

John Randall also planned to establish a new roller mill alongside the existing mill, but died in 1900 and never saw it come to fruition. His son Ebenezer carried on with the project and Redhouse, a prominent local firm, finished the new four-storey brick building in 1902. Based largely on old technology and with fierce competition from much larger mills in the area, the roller mill was not a great commercial success, and quickly fell into disuse. The old mill, however, remained in operation for many years, producing flour and then animal feed. A diesel engine replaced steam power in 1954 but, by then, its working days were numbered. Sadly, dwindling economic prospects led to Stotfold's last working watermill ceasing milling operations in 1966. After this date, the buildings were used for storage only, and the last miller, Sam Randall, finally sold the Mill in 1984.

Devastation and Dereliction

Ron Roper, a Bedfordshire man with a passion for mills, tried to purchase the property to save it as a working museum. Just before the completion of contracts in December 1992, the building was gutted by fire. Although the building structure was seriously damaged, most of the main milling machinery was considered repairable, justifying a 1987 County Court judgment that "..the Mill and its machinery are of national importance.." This prevented further demolition of the building and use of the site for housing development.

Robin Tasker, who lived in the nearby Mill House, joined Ron in the fight to save the damaged Mill and machinery, leading to the formation of the Stotfold Mill Preservation Trust (a registered charity). Its purpose was to buy the ruin with a view to restoring it to a fully operational watermill.

The first Trustees were Robin & Lorelie Tasker, John Saunders, Jayne Hyde and Brian Collier. Efforts to secure ownership of the Mill began. For the next five years, activity was very much 'behind the scenes', with very little physical work at the Mill site. In 1998, Ron and Robin gave a presentation at the Annual Stotfold Town Meeting, outlining the plans for the Mill and asking for volunteers to work on the project. The meeting resulted in new people coming on board who would play major roles in the project over the years to come. These included the Huckles, the Radfords and the Mastertons, local builder John Hyde and Sam Randall, the Mill's last Miller.

Clearing and Securing the Site

On a wet Saturday afternoon in 1998, a group of volunteers walked through the gate, forced their way through the tangle of bushes that had taken root in the Mill, climbed over piles of ash and rubble and reached the remains of the broken and rusting machinery. "Right then - where do we start?"

Shortly after the fire, attempts had been made to protect the site from weather and vandalism. Temporary repairs had been made to the front wall and some areas covered with tarpaulins. Volunteers now set about clearing the site, beginning by removing, by hand, vegetation and some 60 tonnes of ash and rubble from the ground floor. All material was sieved to ensure that all items of importance were salvaged. Here the knowledge of Sam Randall and Ron Roper was crucial. Week after week, odd-shaped tools and pieces of machinery would be retrieved from the debris and presented to Sam or Ron for identification. As well as machinery, many of the original locally made bricks were also salvaged for reuse in the rebuild.

Trust member Phillip Radford recalls those days "..when you walk around this stunning building today it is difficult to imagine that it once took a considerable amount of time and effort just to climb through the wreckage to get from one end to the other. I well remember the excitement when we finally cleared a path a foot wide right down to the far wall to make it easier to get wheelbarrows in to clear the vegetation and debris that covered the waterwheel."

With much debris still to be cleared, work was carried out on the remaining walls, which were capped to protect them from further weather damage, and covered with a temporary roof of timber and plastic sheet. It was in this condition that the Mill hosted its first open day. To the amazement of the team, several hundred people turned up to view what at that time was essentially a burnt-out ground floor with a plastic roof housing some rusty machinery and very charred wooden remains.

During the initial clearance work, the Trust finally secured ownership of the Mill, and bids were submitted to various bodies for funding to cover the costs of what was to be a major restoration project. A start-up grant was received from the Mid Beds District Council, and this enabled the Trust to obtain funding from EB Bedfordshire Ltd. An initial application for Lottery funding failed, but further considerable funding was obtained from EB Bedfordshire (latterly ShanksFirst then GrantScape) and a second Heritage Lottery bid proved successful.

Grants and major donations came from Motorola, Vauxhall and other local benefactors, with a legacy from Sam Randall's sister-in law, Malvene. Other fund-raising activities included open days, quiz nights, old time music-halls, jumble and car boot sales.

Rebuilding and Restoration

The restoration team's structure has progressively changed to meet the requirements of each stage of the work, incorporating qualified engineers, specialist contractors and a host of volunteers, all of them gratefully welcoming the ever-present advice of Sam Randall. The work fell into two main categories - rebuilding the Mill under John Hyde's direction, and the machinery under Ron Roper and Phillip Radford's.

With the first of the major grants secured, rebuilding of the Mill's shell began in 2001, with John Hyde Builders as main contractor. The decision was taken to use British materials wherever possible, and the massive timbers required for the framing came from the Blair Athol Estate in Scotland. The shell was completed in March 2002 when a traditional topping-out ceremony was held. In May, during National Mills Weekend, the building was opened by Sam Randall and Bedfordshire County Council Chairman John Saunders, and blessed by the Vicar of St Mary's Church, Stotfold.

While building work progressed, volunteers tackled the machinery. The build-up of limescale, two inches thick in places, meant that the wheel could not be turned. The buckets had suffered fire damage and were cut back, and volunteers, mainly the lady members of the team, spent nearly ten months undertaking the tedious task of chipping off an estimated one-and-a-half tonnes of limescale using hammers and chisels. Volunteers wire-brushed the hursting support columns and structural steelwork, removing years of accumulated grime and rust.

Work by professional millwright Neil Medcalf, funded by the Heritage Lottery grant, included replacing the waterwheel's sole plate, fitting new buckets, and installing a new upright shaft. Local volunteer Ray Kilby built an entirely new Great Spur Wheel, a truly stunning piece of craftsmanship, to replace the one destroyed by the fire. The rim and spacers were constructed from oak with hornbeam being used for the teeth. The wheel eventually ran again under water power in May 2003. During 2003 and 2004, restoration work on the engine house and chimney was completed.

The fire had damaged all four sets of millstones. Fortunately, the number two set, a pair of French Burr stones, was able to be salvaged and restored. These dense stones, quarried in the Marne Valley, are made up of segments of granite held together with steel bands and backed with plaster of Paris. New steel bands were fitted, and the stones were re-backed using 200 kilos of plaster.

The upright main shaft was initially thought to be reusable, but further examination revealed an extent of decay which presented too high a risk of operational failure. A new shaft was required but no suitable timber could be sourced in the UK. So, with the approval of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, a laminated shaft of Siberian larch made in Denmark using a construction technique successful on Dutch windmills for over 50 years was chosen. As the shell of the new building was complete, the old shaft had to be cut into sections and removed. Getting the new one in was more of a problem, and holes had to be cut in all of the floors, and a section removed from the roof. Using a large crane, the new shaft was inserted through the holes and located in its bottom bearing. The delivery job took only half an hour, though cutting all the holes had taken much, much longer!

The bottom half of the pit wheel revolves in a tank below ground and water level. This tank had been in place since 1897, and corrosion, the passage of time and the fire meant and the pit wheel would revolve in water. This would give its oak teeth only about 5 working years, with the prospect of costly and time-consuming replacement. Hence local boilermakers Michael Maskells were commissioned to build a new tank. Phillip remembers the problems involved "..with the hursting in place, the pit wheel could not be lifted out, so it was split into its two halves.. the top half was moved into the hursting, leaving room for the bottom half to be rotated around the horizontal waterwheel shaft and stored alongside the top half, each half weighing half a ton. Now the pit tank could be lifted and rotated out from under the water wheel shaft, and up through the hole in the hursting normally occupied by the upright shaft. This operation alone took two days to complete. A reversal of the entire operation was required to get the new tank into place"

Recognition

In 2001 and 2003 the Trust won the Environmental section of Vauxhall's Griffin Award, presented annually to "organisations which make an outstanding contribution to the community through the development of a new or enhanced service or project within the following categories - Community Development, Environment or Safety and Security".

In 2004, the Trust was a National Gold Award Winner in the Environmental class of The Green Apple Civic Pride Awards, which celebrate "outstanding environmental performance by recognising and publicising companies, corporations and individuals who are making an effort to preserve and protect the environment for generations to come".

A Day to Remember!

With the waterwheel restored, new pit tank in place, upright shaft replaced, new spur wheel installed, mill stones rebuilt, crown wheel repaired and all metal work cleaned and painted, Stotfold Mill was 'ready for action'! On Wednesday 12 April 2006, the Mill produced flour for the first time since 1966, a huge moment for all involved.

From 1992 Vision to Restoration

The Mill is now in working order, and meets all modern standards for public access, health and safety and environmental health. Randall's Tea Room within the Mill opened its doors for the first time on the 23rd April 2006 and the working Mill opened to the public in May 2006, with the formal opening in October 2006.

The Mill originally had four sets of millstones, but currently has two working pairs, named "Samuel" and "George" after the Randall brothers who were the last working owners. As mentioned earlier, only one pair, Samuel's, could be salvaged from the fire which destroyed much of the rest of the Mill, mainly because they happened to be closed together at the time. George, installed in the Autumn of 2009, is made of a composite material - quartz particles in cement, as used in modern Dutch mills. Both sets produce flour of very high standard. On a historic day, the 10th day of the 10th month of 2010, two pairs of millstones ran simultaneously for the first time in a century, to the delight of Mill volunteers and visitors.

Further restoration of the building resulted in the creation of a boardwalk at the rear, giving wonderful river views and enabling access to the sluice which controls the flow of water. The dressing floor now has a working bolter for sieving wholemeal flour to produce bran and white flour, as well as a winnower, which cleans the incoming grain. Visitors are able to view the operation of the sack hoist.

Robin Tasker had a vision from the beginning to buy and restore this magnificent building to its former glory, and see it once more proudly standing astride the River Ivel. Prior to his death in December 2009, Robin had been made Honorary Life President of the Trust and was able to see his vision become reality.

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