Thursday 24/4/25 Eddie and Howard took the mower and cut all the grass, the nest camera showed a Great Tit sitting on six eggs. Howard set up a wildlife camera aimed at the feeders which Eddie refilled. The camera mainly picked up Jackdaws but also Great Tits and a Woodpecker.
A poster for our open days was put on our notice board on the footpath and the cards were topped up. Howard sanded down the table top and seats of the picnic bench and painted them green, he then got a fallen branch out of the river behind the water wheel.
Sunday 27/4/25 Emma, David and Ryan went to the mill and strimmed, mowed grass, cleaned the brick floor in front of the water wheel and weeded around the cistern area.
Thursday 1/5/25 Anne Marie made a new garden in front of the visitor centre, as she has several tall plants to put in and they will look good in front of the building. Anne Marie also weeded and watered the other gardens.
Eddie and Howard cleaned the glass panels over the brick floors and removed weeds under them. The cycle rack was put on the lawn ready for the open days.
Saturday 3/5/25 There were 8 of us today. Andrew, Fred and Debra had an early start strimming and cutting grass. Debra also cleaned the visitor centre, then tidied and cleaned the railway wagon which will be used as a kitchen at the open days. Debra printed VE Day photos which I put in the old D Day album from last year.
I took the VE Day grant items to the mill and unpacked them, including a notice board, banners, bunting, poppy seeds, lamp of peace and a music player which I charged using the solar panel controller and tested with my music USB stick. We'll have 1940s music playing at the open days which I'll download onto the player.
Emma and David weeded the hammer mill, trench, cistern and brick areas and put all the weeds in our compost bays. Debra cleared Ivy from the stanch and strimmed the opposite bank.
Eddie painted the structural parts of the picnic bench black to match our bench seat which is also green and black. Eddie and Debra pulled up nettles and weeds from the wildflower meadow which is growing well, Red Campion are already in flower.
I made a table from an old door for some of the displays to go on in the gazebo and Fred welded and bolted the water feed pipe to the bracket so we can have the water wheel turning at the open days, Andrew and Stuart helped with this, they brought their dogs Ripley and Hector who enjoyed going in the river. I checked that no birds are nesting in the wheel.
We had a visit from Marek and Michelle who crossed our bridge from the footpath, I showed them our visitor centre and they were interested in the finds. I told them about our open days next weekend which they may attend as they live in Norfolk.
Eddie returned a wooden planter which he no longer needs, it was given to us by Helen, then Eddie took it home to use. Some of the parts were loose so Eddie fitted more screws to fix it. We will use it for large plants or shrubs.
We switched on the nest cameras and saw the Great Tit on her eggs again. A Pied Wagtail was on the back of a bench seat, a few weeks ago Howard thought there was a White Wagtail on the trench wall, he showed the photo to Roger in his birdwatching group and he confirmed, so we have White, Pied and Grey Wagtails at the mill.
Graham Bartlett
Interactive Plan Activity Volunteer Previous Next Mill Workers
