Travel writer Heath Richards takes a closer look at Lyme Regis's Town Mill

HAVE you ever wondered where the expression ‘grind to a halt’ comes from?

Well, take yourself back to Medieval England and imagine a landscape of working mills used by local communities to grind flour to make bread and other staple foods. The phrase is used to describe what happened when an over-zealous miller poured in too much grain, clogging and thus preventing the millstones from grinding and causing the Mill to eventually stop or ‘grind to a halt’. That was the first thing I learnt on my visit to one of Britain’s oldest surviving mills, situated in the heart of Lyme Regis, aka ‘The Pearl of Dorset’. King Edward III granted Lyme Regis ‘Royal Charter’ status in 1340, which guaranteed its upward climb as a thriving medieval town. The Mill was destroyed during the Siege of Lyme in 1644 before being rebuilt in 1661, just after the English Civil War. It still functions today as a working Mill, producing flour which you can buy in the gallery-cum-souvenir shop.

Wholesome, earthy odours combining wheat, rye and spelt filled my nostrils as soon as I stepped into the Mill. And there was that ‘working’ odour when you combine large metal machinery and imposing wooden beams; that unmistakeable aroma that you sense when you step into a building or a structure that has been in use for hundreds of years. It is also a museum and on each of the three floors, there is a vast array of photographs and interesting articles about the Town Mill.

You could be forgiven for having a vision of a quaint, picturesque Town Mill, the location of a Julie Andrews film perhaps, surrounded by beautiful landscape, where its workers were happy and gay and enjoyed milling grain for this area of South East Dorset. Landscape aside, that is only partially true. In reality, its employees worked in morbid fear of explosions. Let me explain. There was a huge amount of dust in the air created after a day’s milling; imagine various grains being poured, 12 hours a day, every day, onto the 3 ton circular wheel, spinning at more than 700 revs per minute. An incredible speed. That dust was actually 64% more explosive than gunpowder and more flammable than petrol. So, you won’t be surprised to know that explosions in mills were a regular occurrence until, with advances in technology, the stone teeth were changed to apple wood to stop the sparks caused by the stone teeth grinding on stone.

You almost wonder how it was that the skilled artisans were able to be as incredibly precise as they were, fashioning the millstones to a standard design of the time. Sat a bare 1mm apart, the millstones were beautifully sculpted from Derbyshire stone (granite is useless, as it polishes not grinds) and at the heart of the Mill is the water wheel, its movement driving the entire mechanical process of milling. The sight of the creaking mill wheel turning is undoubtedly impressive and one of the highlights of the tour was seeing how water flow from the River Lyme tributary is masterfully controlled to allow just enough pressure to turn the large wooden wheel. Adding to the charm of the Town Mill are the playful names given to some of the mechanical parts such as ‘Damsel’, ‘Chatterbox’ and ‘Miller’s daughter’.

Most of the machinery at the Lyme Regis Town Mill still works on the principle of physics, with the laws of gravity deftly observed; our tour guide and resident miller, Michael, expertly demonstrated the pulley system, taking heavy bags of grain from the basement of the Mill to the top floor and back again. It is said that a miller, eyes closed, could identify everything occurring in his mill by the unique sound of the various pulleys and the distinctive thud of the grain bags bulging with grain as they hit the mill floor.

Conveniently located in the delightful artisan quarter in the heart of town, the Lyme Regis Town Mill is a fine example of medieval workings in a restored post-Civil War building. It is well worth a visit and has a relaxed ‘jump on, jump off’ free tour that includes seeing a modern-day miller plying his trade.

The Lyme Regis Town Mill is open daily between 10.30am and 4.30pm.

See townmill.org.uk

HEATH RICHARDS