Grants help Woodbridge Tide Mill Museum
resist climate change

Woodbridge’s Tide Mill is unique. It is the only tide mill regularly tide milling and selling flour in the UK. It is a wooden building on an exposed waterfront and so it requires constant attention to mill and to open to the public.
Although the Mill was extensively refurbished in 1971 and 2011 the vital Hurst Frame, which supports the principal machinery and is designed to protect the building from its vibrations, has been under threat. Rising tides mean its enormous oak feet are underwater for long periods. Prolonged submersion threatens the structure.
The Mill’s Trustees secured grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Suffolk County Council to allow remedial work which has been undertaken by Chapel Properties.
The Frame wS supported while the bottom of the two legs were replaced by specialist waterproof concrete, and a tough Ekki timber plate inserted between the concrete and Frame. So now the Hurst Frame will stand firm on water-resistant legs for years to come.

Chair of Trustees John Carrington reported “The magnificent machinery, all driven by the vast Mill wheel, attracts visitors from all over the world. The threat to the supporting Hurst Frame could have stopped the machinery turning. This would have ended flour production and removed a major attraction for visitors.”
“The Trustees and everyone involved with the Museum are grateful to National Lottery Heritage Fund and Suffolk County Council for granting the funds to allow this work to take place. Such high tides are unprecedented and a sign of the changing environment that we live in.”