All Restoration Updates

July 2, 2019
Kositos Returns

The Kositos sign that we found in the mill now has pride of place above the door.

July 2, 2019
New North Door

Shakey admires the newly fitted door in the first floor.

May 18, 2019
Light Hoists

The ropes are actually electric cables made to look like rope.

May 18, 2019
Pulley Lights

Close up of the pulleys that hold the lights up these are ex-admiralty hardware sourced from Ebay and give the slight impression of being aboard ship.

May 17, 2019
Dismantled door

We removed the side door that we had installed to access the building. This door having become unnecessary since the new opening was commissioned. This makes a big difference to the interior space in that section of the building.

April 29, 2019
Lighting the pit wheel

The pit wheel needed a bit of light to show off its best side.

December 20, 2018
Arranging a new driveshaft

False promises of a three week turn around by a Sheffield forging company claiming to make a shaft from billet turned out to be a pipe dream; six months of nonsense, excuses, failure to communicate and false promises. Eventually we gave up calling them. They are a disgrace to Sheffield and British industry.

A local supplier of traction engine parts is now on the case and making excellent progress.

In the meantime, we're shoring up the floor around the gear box.

December 20, 2018
Corn crusher in pride of place

The corn crusher has been dismantled, cleaned and re-mantled. Thanks to some borrowed muscle, it now has pride of place on the stone floor so that it can be seen from below.

December 15, 2018
Lighting the stones

Trying out lights to work out how to make the most of the milling equipment on the stone floor.

December 14, 2018
Lighting the medieval wall

Warm white dimmable GU10 spotlights illuminate the finished “medieval wall,” modern timber repairs and plasterwork. Beyond lies the old millers office; part of the now semi-detached Flitwick Mill House and forming a brick internal wall. 

The much earlier medieval timber frame west wall of the mill is separated by 150mm of sheep’s wool and posh 21st century vapour membrane.

December 14, 2018
First Floor Lighting

Designing and installing lighting and power circuits is challenging especially when you haven't defined exactly which part of a room is for which purpose. It all looks a bit shambolic and there really is underlying plan.

December 6, 2018
Where to Stair?

We trialled three positions for the staircase and liked this the best. Here is the well worn temorary stair-run. There are no balustrades here.

November 13, 2018
Window sills and painted walls

Walls windows and ceilings come together in perfect harmony reflecting the past and incorporating the future. Introducing top notch insulation and modern high performance sliding sash windows with oak window boards throughout the building transforms the energy required. 

This is a corner of the master bedroom looking out towards the north east across the fields to Maulden.

November 2, 2018
Oak flooring around the stones

Hinge and bracket (our chippies) have worked the oak flooring around the gimbles and stones so that we can put all three sets of stones back in place once the flooring is done.

October 23, 2018
Laying floorboards on the stone floor

Transformation of the stone floor is well underway; the walls are finished and the stone furniture is elsewhere being refurbished. There’s a marked difference in wear on the two stones in this picture. The two different wall thicknesses are evident along the back wall. Bricks below; bearing the brunt of the vertical loads of milling; together with structural and weather loads imposed upon and by the timber upper structures of the building. 

October 23, 2018
Wood lining on the bins floor

The inside west end wall of the older 4-bay mill. The wood lining replaces that of the Victorian grain store.  The windows on the grain storage floor are new additions.

October 16, 2018
Oak flooring meets old roof structure

Formerly the eastern extremity of the medieval 4 bay mill showing the older roof angle to the left. New oak flooring comprises foot wide planks and traditional cut nails. This wall formed a bin boundary when the Victorians extended the mill. Its now the west wall of the master bedroom. 

October 12, 2018
Flooring in the corner window

The raised floor with panoramic windows enables the viewer to see the structure of the building from within and from outside. The curiously different level in this area results from the early Victorian integration of two or more buildings. The much earlier four bay two storey mill is behind us in this view and we are looking east out to the SSSI of Flitwick Moor. It is assumed that the raised area here represents the floor of the second storey of an adjacent corn store that was absorbed into the Victorian mill when it was extended. We’ve kept the different floor levels throughout and this level comprises foot wide oak planking. It’s a great place to read a book or watch the world go by.

October 10, 2018
Fix my crack

Repairs to the brickwork in the east end wall involves the replacement of broken bricks which have been damaged over time either by frost or general subsidence over many years. The damage was not serious but we felt the building needed a bit of TLC.

Dave Shakespeare is the son of a stone-mason and matched the existent brickwork perfectly

September 27, 2018
Plastering near the stones

Clean plastered walls behind the stones really make the mill furniture stand out. You can see the old extractor mounted on the ceiling. It still has a Robin's nest in that we haven't cleared out yet.

July 28, 2018
Lining the Lucum

The lucum has been transformed by the new roof lining and the wooden insulation embedded within. This is work in progress and we intend to enable this whole area to be a leisure space for enjoyment of music and contemplation of the soul. It's a magical space.

July 28, 2018
Plasterboard walls

Master bathroom walls and floors. The doorway looks into the master bedroom which currently gives view through the partitions beyond each of the bays in view were each formally separated into two bins. There were no windows on the bin floor level as this was formally grain storage.

July 28, 2018
Old chutes make for wacky rooms

One of the rooms on the bins floor has two chutes running through it making for a very wacky space.

July 5, 2018
Lining a wall on the bins floor

Timber linings replicate the old bins. The whole of the second floor comprised a set of storage bins that separated supplies of raw produce. There were no windows and a complete mismatch of shapes, sizes and roof heights. The storage floor held up to eighty tons of wheat in 18 compartments.

Here the different floor heights are evident and we’ve replicated the materials and structure of the original materials albeit less crudely because it’s now living accommodation for humans rather than corn and the rats & mice that fed on it.

We’ve also standardised as far as possible on reasonable head height and regard ourselves as sensibly short people. Two thirds of the bin floor area has been lowered about six inches to facilitate this.

June 9, 2018
Broken Waterwheel - Removing the gear box

Sadly the driveshaft to the gearbox parted company from the flange bolted to the pit-wheel. It failed at the weld, probably because we didn’t use a shrink fit between the two. This necessitated the removal of the gearbox and manufacture of a replacement shaft assembly.

The revised shaft will be a shrink fit into the drive flange keyed in place rather than welded. (It was the weld that actually failed, probably due to the lack of interference fit because we could not press the two together.)