Nether Alderley Mill produce its first flour for sale for decades.

Nether Alderley Mill

I've been a guide at Nether Alderley water mill since it re-opened in 2013 after full restoration by the National Trust, and a Miller since a year later. We have been milling flour for demonstration purposes during visitor tours since re-opening, but we did not have clearance to sell it.

Yesterday, however, we produced our first bagged flour which will soon be for sale at Nether Alderley, Styal Mill, Harehill, Little Moreton Hall, and used in foodstuffs sold in the Styal Mill restaurant. The hoops we have had to jump through to obtain permission to sell the four for human consumption have been considerable.

We have had to show successful vermin control (almost impossible in a medieval stone water mill) and be compliant in countless areas, have documented processes and signing procedures including batch and individual bag tracability. We had to pass audits by the Food Standards Agency and Cheshire East Food Standards among others, and most onerously internal National Trust standards for food hygiene! One presumes things were simpler back in the 1600s!

Me keeping an eye on the grain level in the hopper as the runner stone spins above the bed stone to mill it into flour

However,we have at last made it. Yesterday a group of Millers took two sacks of Suffolk wheat grain that had been transported from Styal Mill in a catering-approved vehicle and fed them through the mill stones. The flour was sieved to ensure nothing was there that shouldn't be (it wasn't), weighed into bags under sanitized conditions, sealed, and labelled.

From a bag of wheat to many bags of flour

So soon our visitors, and those to other NT properties in our local group, will be able to buy flour milled in our ancient water mill.

The finished product

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