Staverton Mill is an historic woollen mill and now a cereal factory on the River Avon in the village of Staverton near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England.

History

A mill is first mentioned in

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

at ''Stavretone.'' By the end of the 14th century it had become a

fulling mill Fulling, also known as tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelt waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven cloth (particularly wool) to eliminate (lanolin) oils, dirt, ...

to meet the burgeoning demand for woollen

broadcloth Broadcloth is a dense, Plain weave, plain woven textile, cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50 to 75% wider than its finish ...

, with a stone weir to control flow to the

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous b ...

s. About 1800, the old mill was bought by John Jones, who replaced the old building. In July 1802 the mill, called the "Staverton Superfine Woollen Manufactory" was attacked as part of a series of disputes about pay. By 1813, Staverton mill had 40 looms. After a fire in 1824, further rebuilding resulted in a six-storey building. In 1897, the site was sold to the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co. to facilitate expansion of their

condensed milk Condensed milk is Milk#Cow, cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of sweetened condensed milk, to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condensed m ...

production, after which the top two stories of the mill were removed and the building became offices, a canteen and stores. The new owners replaced the water wheel with a vortex water turbine and installed equipment including copper vacuum pans, coolers, heaters and a basic filling and packing line. The 19th-century mill chimney was replaced in 1913 when the boiler house was modernised. The new chimney was built in brick by the German firm Alphons Custodis, was 172 feet high with a 6 ft 6in diameter, and cost £1,056 to construct. There was a cast-iron water tank built by Dortmund around the chimney, halfway up its height. The factory's output was sent by rail from Holt Junction station, some distant by road. A large covered loading bay was built at the station in 1909, which remained in use until 1934 when the factory gained a direct connection to the railway. Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co. became

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

in December 1935 and by 1936 local farmers were supplying more than of milk per annum to be condensed at the mill. A new manufacturing block was constructed on the site in 1935 to improve efficiency, and the top four stories of the mill building's original six were demolished. Two years later, the workforce had increased to 255. The site is labelled "Staverton Condenser" on an Ordnance Survey map published in 1958.

Later 20th century

In 1967 a new plant known as the "baked bean factory" was built on the site for

Crosse & Blackwell Crosse & Blackwell is an English food brand. The original company was established in London in 1706, then was acquired by Edmund Crosse and Thomas Blackwell in 1830. It became independent until it was acquired by Swiss Conglomerate (company), con ...

at a cost of £750,000. The milk cannery closed in 1972 and was refitted as a yoghurt manufacturing plant, dovetailing with Nestlé's 1978 acquisition of the Chambourcy brand. By 1980 the factory was producing 72 million pots of yoghurt per annum. Nestlé produced cans on the site for many years, for the milk plant and later for the bean factory, which produced cans of baked beans and pasta in sauce (sold under their own label and for supermarket own-brands). The can manufacturing unit was closed on the site in 1989, as cans could be procured from

Metal Box ''Metal Box'' is the second studio album by Public Image Ltd, released by Virgin Records on 23 November 1979. The album takes its name from the round metal canister which contained the initial pressings of the record. It was later reissued in s ...

more cheaply than they could be made, and Nestlé as a whole moved away from over a century of can-making (except for odd sizes e.g. for catering coffee and milk powder, which continued to be made at Dalston, near Carlisle). The brick chimney was a local landmark for much of the century, but was demolished in 1989 and replaced with a much taller metal stack. The Cross & Blackwell factory closed in 1995 and the site was transferred to Cereal Partners, a joint venture between General Mills and Nestlé, which makes breakfast cereals. The factory at Staverton 1984

21st century

The Nestlé desserts factory closed in 2004, allowing the site to concentrate on wheat-based cereals. Production of Shredded Wheat and

Shreddies Shreddies are a breakfast cereal marketed in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. It was first produced in Canada in 1939 by Nabisco. The ''Shreddies'' brand is held by Post Consumer Brands in Canada, and Nestlé in the United Kingdom and I ...

was moved from a Welwyn Garden City factory in 2007, and in 2014 those were still the main products. The metal chimney was removed in 2011, as it was not required by the cereal-making plant.

History

Later 20th century

21st century

References

Further reading