Narborough organisations are invited to report on their past years activities at the annual parish meeting which was on Monday 7/4/25 and was open to the public. Here is the bone mill report which was read out at the meeting.
Narborough Bone Mill is opposite the Nar Valley Way footpath a mile from River Close, visitors can join us on Thursdays by crossing our footbridge. We have public open days in May and September with our water wheel turning.
This year the bone mill volunteers were given Unsung Hero Awards by Councillor Peter Wilkinson who visited the mill to present us with our certificates. A KL Magazine article featured the bone mill in the November/December issue telling the story of the bone mill with some good pictures.
At our May open days we celebrated the 80th Anniversary of D Day with a Breckland Council grant, we had displays and a model of the D Day landings made by the volunteers, activities included radio controlled model tanks and spreading Poppy seeds. Our September open days had displays showing how the mill interacted with other industries and transport methods including Whaling and Horse drawn barges, we had excellent feedback from visitors.
In October the bone mill volunteers cleared up Narborough Church yard and cut back the public footpath beside the Church. We also cleared several fallen trees from the Nar Valley Way footpath after the various storms.
We refurbished our footbridge across the river which allows walkers to join us on Thursdays when volunteers work there, visitors can look around the mill and see the finds discovered on site in our visitor centre which also has videos of the water wheel turning, slideshows of our model mill and our wildflower meadow in bloom.
We made an insect hotel and Solitary Bee box with viewing windows so we can watch Bees hatching out in spring, these are in our wildflower meadow which flowered for the second time last year between late May and August, this can be seen from the footpath.
We watched Jackdaws and Great Tits being raised again with our nest box cameras which we had to repair after mice chewed the cables. A storm blew our Barn Owl box down so we refurbished it and refitted it back in the tree.
Bone Mill workers from the 1800s were researched and their information is now on the website including details of fatal accidents and court cases involving them, several have graves in the Churchyard.
2025 is the 10th anniversary of work starting at the mill when we rebuilt the brick walls, refurbished the water wheel and uncovered the site. We will be celebrating the anniversary at our May and September open days and we plan to repair our fallen river wall this year.
Our next open days are 10 & 11 May 2025 from 11am to 4pm. We are currently looking for more volunteers to help us look after the mill, see our website www.bonemill.org.uk for details and to contact us.
Graham Bartlett
Secretary
Narborough Bone Mill
Interactive Plan Activity Employees Awards Volunteer Report 2024
