New lease of life for Broads mills
Five apprentice millwrights have been chosen from all over the country to take part in a ground-breaking training scheme which will give them the skills to save some of the most iconic landmarks in the Broads, the drainage mills.
They join five young reedcutters, who, for the first time, are undergoing structured training in an effort to revive the declining reedcutting industry, at a press day at How Hill National Nature Reserve on January 31st, 11.30am.
Both millwrights and reedcutters receive Heritage Lottery Fund bursaries through a scheme managed by the Broads Authority. Their training includes practical on the job work, backed up by a day a week at Easton College which leads to an NVQ.
The millwrights, who come from as far afield as Inverness, combine skills varying from brick and mortar work, carpentry and joinery, conservation and ground works, mechanical engineering and painting and decoration.
The three year bursary scheme will be backed by a multitude of skills and experience from the Windmills Trust, Natural England, RSPB, the Broads Authority, Vincent Pargeter and Richard Seago – Norfolk’s last local millwright. The trainees will be put through diverse but structured training including scaffolding, rope-access, lime-mortaring, boat-handling, timberwork, specialist painting and timber preservation techniques, metal work, wildlife conservation, and an NVQ level 3 in Heritage Construction Skills.
Bursaries Manager Graham Bayne said: "The trainees will learn the different skills independently to start with and then it will all be bolted together by the end of the year."
Since the scheme has started the trainee millwrights have already got stuck in. Work has included clearing scrub and undergrowth, surveying, writing an inventory of the surviving machinery and buildings, writing schedules of work, setting up a workshop base and excavating waterways.
The bursary holders will undertake work from ground and site clearance to large structural restoration on a number of at-risk mills. By the end of the three years the trainees will have worked on a third of the mills in the Broads, many of which are derelict.
While mainstream trades such as bricklaying, joinery and plumbing have enjoyed high wages in the last ten years, many traditional craft trades are in danger of dying out. There are 79 drainage mills in the Broads and only one local millwright. So the shortage of skilled millwrights has led to long waiting lists, as long as five years, for even minor jobs.
"The rarity of the trade will hopefully enable the trainees to graduate into self-employment as millwrights, or help fill the skills shortage within heritage building conservation." said Graham Bayne." Traditionally millwrighting and reedcutting skills were handed down from father to son, but many of these have been lost over time. The idea of the bursary scheme is to stop some of these unique skills from being lost forever."
Bryan Read, chairman of the Norfolk Windmill Trust said: " I am really excited about the work that is already taking place as part of this scheme and for the plans for the life of the project."
The millwrights are Peter Goulding, 28, from The Black Isle near Inverness , who comes from the building trade, Stephen Pulfer, 51, from Rockland St Mary who has run his own painting and decorating business for over 30 years and has worked on historic buildings, engineer Paul Abel, 19, from Attleborough who worked on classic motor bikes, Luke Harold, 18, from Morley who has just completed a bricklaying apprenticeship and Jake Wilder 20, from Norwich who has just finished his apprenticeship in carpentry.
26/01/2007
