Flour Milling

Flour milling was an important local trade from at least the mid 17th century. The Town Mill (or White Mill) was operating in 1653 just south of the Common but was blown down in a storm nearly a century later. It was rebuilt and blown down again a few years afterwards. The remains were finally cleared away in 1898.

The Great or Black Mill was transported here from Great Yarmouth and erected on the Common in 1798, on the site now occupied by St Barnabas residential home. (Click the picture top left to see the mill in its setting.) Robert Dawson was the owner. Later, in 1803, it was leased to Peregrine Edwards with the Town paying for its upkeep on the understanding that Mr Edwards would charge the poor just one shilling for every sack of corn he milled for them.

A series of gales in the mid-nineteenth century inflicted considerable damage and it was eventually demolished in 1894. Mill Lane, Black Mill Road and Mill House remain as tangible meminders of the mill's history.

New Mill or Baggott's Mill, which stood on Church land at the corner of Field Stile and Cumberland Roads, was built by the Vicar, Rev'd H.W. Birch in 1841 and was much disapproved of by his parishioners. It, too, was storm-damaged and later, under the ownership of Mr Baggott, burned down in its 35th year.

The Industrial Revolution finally came to Southwold's milling industry in 1894 when two young local entrepreneurs, Mr C.R. Smith and Mr H.W. Girling commissioned a modern, brick-built, roller mill on North Green.