wolfism
16-08-2009, 09:25 PM
Visited with Pincheck, whose steady nerves were crucial, and big thanks to Dmax and his friends, Nurse Payne and REZ, who met up with us on the roof in the wee hours of the morning. It was pleasant up there in the cool air, under a canopy of glowing cloud: we chatted for a long time before we said farewell; then Pincheck and I slept while we waited for the sun to come up.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8326w.jpg
Via the Royal Docks …
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8334w.jpg
From Millennium Mills to Millennium Dome …
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8138w.jpg
The Canary Wharf cluster from the roof …
Millennium Mills towers over Royal Victoria Dock in East London, as its one remaining industrial landmark. Most of its neighbours have been replaced by apartment blocks and conference facilities. Built by William Vernon & Sons in 1905, the mill made wheat flour and related products: its mainstay was the white flour that generations of us consumed as white bread. What you might not know is that the bleaching agents used to make it white are powerful chemicals. One, called agene, could drive animals insane. Don’t feed white bread to your hound …
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8136w.jpg
Dawn strikes the headhouse of Millennium Mills
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8155w.jpg
Vents on the roof at dawn
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8164w.jpg
Inside the headhouse
Why Millennium? A large advertisement was run in The Times in 1914 by Vernons, explaining that their most successful product was renamed ‘Millennium Flour’ after winning ‘The Miller’ Cup in 1899. It was selected from “the best wheats of the world,” the grain was sent through a carefully-designed industrial process: mechanically sifted with an air blast “to separate dirt, chaff and broken grains,” scrubbed with hot water, and then dried in an immense purifying plant. Millennium Flour was marketed as a health food: it contained “all the absorbable phosphates” but none of the husks and unabsorbable constituents of wheat. In other words, none of the brown bran which supposedly makes wholemeal bread so healthy: isn’t it strange how our tastes change?
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8169w.jpg
Switchgear
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8177w.jpg
Grain flow
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8181w.jpg
Excel conference centre on the opposite side of Royal Victoria Dock
Millennium Mills (mark one) was a reinforced concrete-framed building with concrete spandrel walls; it was damaged in 1917 by the Silvertown Explosion, a huge blast at a nearby explosives factory. The grain silos and warehouses of the flour mills were amongst the 17 acres that the Port of London Authority estimated were affected. The western wing of Millennium Mills (with “Spillers” painted on the gable) survived, although the timber-floored areas of the mills were burnt out but the central section (with Millennium Mills spelt out in a tile frieze on the parapet) took the full blast. In 1933, Vernons rebuilt it on an even grander scale than before: Millennium Mills (mark two) is an Art Deco monster, with a floorplate of just under half a million square feet. It’s ten storeys high, and was also constructed from concrete, with a Hennebique-type frame and brick-infilled spandrels. After 1905, and 1933, the third re-construction was carried out in the 1950’s, when the steel-framed infill between the south-western wing and the main block was built at high level. For those who have visited, it’s the windowless part which is knee deep in pigeon crap.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8185w.jpg
Grain distribution pipes
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8196w.jpg
Looking along the south elevation
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8200w.jpg
Redler made the grain distribution gear in several other maltings and granaries I've explored …
Milling wheat into flour is a fairly simple process, but it needs some serious equipment: the wheat was unloaded from ships moored alongside the concrete “dolphins” on the southern wharfside – suction elevators sat on top of the dolphins, but they have long since been removed. From there, the wheat ran upwards into the headhouse on the top storey of the granary, using suction and Archimedes screws to raise it through 150 feet. The grain then began its journey down through the building, round and round and down and down the helical chutes. Along the way, it was cleaned, riddled and wheat sifted from chaff, before being sent by compressed air along serpentine pipework to the milling machines. By the 1960’s, sophisticated milling equipment ensured that the flour was uniform, meaning that no sifting was required. A stream of fine white flour went one way (by now a highly explosive dust) and the dirty outer shell or “bran” went another, ending up in eight storey high “C” silo in the courtyard to the south.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8205w.jpg
Blower motor
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8207w.jpg
"D" SIlo at 6am
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8226w.jpg
Bogie carriage in the Room without Walls
After the War, Vernon & Sons was taken over by Spillers Ltd., so the few remaining pieces of paperwork in the mills – blanks test reports, load cards, the odd flour sack, all bear the Spillers name. Spillers themselves lost their independence: firstly to Dalgety, then to Tomkins, the parent of Rank Hovis. The Royal Docks were also changing: slowly run down over the course of the 1970’s, this process accelerated through the Eighties, with the creation of the LDDC in 1981 which forced existing industrial firms to move out in preparation for redevelopment. A masterplan from the mid-1980’s envisaged that both the Millennium Mills and the CWS Mill on the opposite side of Pontoon Dock could be converted to modern uses, and the land around the dock catering to a mix of light industrial, shopping and tourism. The CWS Mill was acquired by the LDDC after it closed in the mid-80’s, and transformation into a huge luxury hotel was mooted: but it was flattened a few years later.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8326w.jpg
Via the Royal Docks …
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8334w.jpg
From Millennium Mills to Millennium Dome …
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8138w.jpg
The Canary Wharf cluster from the roof …
Millennium Mills towers over Royal Victoria Dock in East London, as its one remaining industrial landmark. Most of its neighbours have been replaced by apartment blocks and conference facilities. Built by William Vernon & Sons in 1905, the mill made wheat flour and related products: its mainstay was the white flour that generations of us consumed as white bread. What you might not know is that the bleaching agents used to make it white are powerful chemicals. One, called agene, could drive animals insane. Don’t feed white bread to your hound …
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8136w.jpg
Dawn strikes the headhouse of Millennium Mills
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8155w.jpg
Vents on the roof at dawn
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8164w.jpg
Inside the headhouse
Why Millennium? A large advertisement was run in The Times in 1914 by Vernons, explaining that their most successful product was renamed ‘Millennium Flour’ after winning ‘The Miller’ Cup in 1899. It was selected from “the best wheats of the world,” the grain was sent through a carefully-designed industrial process: mechanically sifted with an air blast “to separate dirt, chaff and broken grains,” scrubbed with hot water, and then dried in an immense purifying plant. Millennium Flour was marketed as a health food: it contained “all the absorbable phosphates” but none of the husks and unabsorbable constituents of wheat. In other words, none of the brown bran which supposedly makes wholemeal bread so healthy: isn’t it strange how our tastes change?
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8169w.jpg
Switchgear
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8177w.jpg
Grain flow
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8181w.jpg
Excel conference centre on the opposite side of Royal Victoria Dock
Millennium Mills (mark one) was a reinforced concrete-framed building with concrete spandrel walls; it was damaged in 1917 by the Silvertown Explosion, a huge blast at a nearby explosives factory. The grain silos and warehouses of the flour mills were amongst the 17 acres that the Port of London Authority estimated were affected. The western wing of Millennium Mills (with “Spillers” painted on the gable) survived, although the timber-floored areas of the mills were burnt out but the central section (with Millennium Mills spelt out in a tile frieze on the parapet) took the full blast. In 1933, Vernons rebuilt it on an even grander scale than before: Millennium Mills (mark two) is an Art Deco monster, with a floorplate of just under half a million square feet. It’s ten storeys high, and was also constructed from concrete, with a Hennebique-type frame and brick-infilled spandrels. After 1905, and 1933, the third re-construction was carried out in the 1950’s, when the steel-framed infill between the south-western wing and the main block was built at high level. For those who have visited, it’s the windowless part which is knee deep in pigeon crap.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8185w.jpg
Grain distribution pipes
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8196w.jpg
Looking along the south elevation
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8200w.jpg
Redler made the grain distribution gear in several other maltings and granaries I've explored …
Milling wheat into flour is a fairly simple process, but it needs some serious equipment: the wheat was unloaded from ships moored alongside the concrete “dolphins” on the southern wharfside – suction elevators sat on top of the dolphins, but they have long since been removed. From there, the wheat ran upwards into the headhouse on the top storey of the granary, using suction and Archimedes screws to raise it through 150 feet. The grain then began its journey down through the building, round and round and down and down the helical chutes. Along the way, it was cleaned, riddled and wheat sifted from chaff, before being sent by compressed air along serpentine pipework to the milling machines. By the 1960’s, sophisticated milling equipment ensured that the flour was uniform, meaning that no sifting was required. A stream of fine white flour went one way (by now a highly explosive dust) and the dirty outer shell or “bran” went another, ending up in eight storey high “C” silo in the courtyard to the south.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8205w.jpg
Blower motor
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8207w.jpg
"D" SIlo at 6am
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/UF%202009/millennium-8226w.jpg
Bogie carriage in the Room without Walls
After the War, Vernon & Sons was taken over by Spillers Ltd., so the few remaining pieces of paperwork in the mills – blanks test reports, load cards, the odd flour sack, all bear the Spillers name. Spillers themselves lost their independence: firstly to Dalgety, then to Tomkins, the parent of Rank Hovis. The Royal Docks were also changing: slowly run down over the course of the 1970’s, this process accelerated through the Eighties, with the creation of the LDDC in 1981 which forced existing industrial firms to move out in preparation for redevelopment. A masterplan from the mid-1980’s envisaged that both the Millennium Mills and the CWS Mill on the opposite side of Pontoon Dock could be converted to modern uses, and the land around the dock catering to a mix of light industrial, shopping and tourism. The CWS Mill was acquired by the LDDC after it closed in the mid-80’s, and transformation into a huge luxury hotel was mooted: but it was flattened a few years later.