What we did in our Winter Holidays

At the end of the autumn, the mill was awarded Quality Assured Visitor Attraction status by Visit England for the seventh year in a run.  It's lovely to know that in these modern days with gadgets everywhere that the personal touch of millers at an ancient rural watermill is still valued.  We had our last visitors to the watermill in October, some school groups who had come to take part in our wartime mill workshop.  Since then millers have given the place a good clean throughout and put the mill to bed for the winter.  Maintenance work and repairs have taken place on the some of the machinery and the penstock by the overshot wheel.  These are the types of jobs that you can only get done when the mill is closed.  The sluice gates on the by-wash have been open through the winter to send the water past the mill rather than risk damaging the machinery inside if we have heavy rain.  Even so, with the year-long rain that we had in 2012 the pond has remained fairly full this past few months and millers have had to make regular checks on the place. 

As readers of this blog will know there are strong links between apple trees and watermills and so on 12th January, we wassailed our apple trees at the mill in keeping with tradition. 

Friends and people who have been keen supporters of the mill gathered as darkness began to fall.  One of the millers had been busy all day baking cheese scones and mulling cider for everyone to enjoy along with some hot spiced apple juice. 

We listened to the folk tale of the Apple Tree Man, then picked up our drums and bells to process around the trees and make much noise to drive away the evil spirits.

We hung toast in the branches for the birds.  Whatever the apple harvest this year, there was a fine crop of toast.

We sang to the oldest apple tree and poured cider on its roots. 

Then it was done and all headed off to the nearby Carden Arms for a meal and lots of music.

We'll be looking forward to the watermill opening up to everyone again in a few months, beginning with weekend afternoons from April, then each afternoon except Monday from May.  And of course there will be many special events through the spring and summer to bring to life the many stories of our wonderful mill.  Of which, more soon...