Millennium Mills, Silvertown, E16 – Aug ‘09

[wolfism]

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.


Via the Royal Docks …


From Millennium Mills to Millennium Dome …


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 Most of its neighbours have been replaced by apartment blocks and conference facilities.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 …


Dawn strikes the headhouse of Millennium Mills


Vents on the roof at dawn


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?


Switchgear


Grain flow


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.


Grain distribution pipes


Looking along the south elevation


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.


Blower motor


"D" SIlo at 6am


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.

[wolfism]

Plumber's nightmare


Silos


The 1905 wing, and stairflights of doom

Millennium Mills was the last of the granaries in the Royal Docks to shut down: Spillers Milling moved out in 1992 – their operations relocated to Tilbury Dock, further down the Thames. The LDDC proposed that the pneumatic grain elevators on the quayside should be preserved – but again, these were demolished a few years later. Today only the granary of the Millennium Mills still stands – its “B” and “C” silos were demolished around 1994, so what you see today is half of what once was. After closure the Mills took on a strange new life, which continues today: we’re only the latest in a long line of irregulars to seek out the empty mills.

Firstly came architect Nigel Coates, whose Arkalbion project in the mid-80's proposed a narrative for the derelict docks that included carnivals, casinos and fun palaces. Jean Michelle Jarre's “Destination Docklands” concert in 1988 used the mills as a backdrop for projections, lasers and fireworks. He was followed by the film-maker Derek Jarman whose film “The Last of England”, also 1988, captures something of the post-apocalyptic feel which the empty docks had long before redevelopment began. In Jarman’s film, shot on Super-8 film with vividly saturated colours, the characters dance around on the roof of Millennium Mills. The mills were also used in the filming of Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”; and several pop music videos, then more recently the “Ashes to Ashes” TV series.


Milling machinery


Drop …


Structural frame

I first visited this part of London around 1994, when the DLR was half-built. I came to the end of the line at Cyprus, then wandered across a wasteland which was largely cleared, but some buildings stood out in the distance … across the dock, the massive empty mills were remote and seemingly unreachable. Years later, I came across Iain Sinclair’s book – “Lights out for the Territory” which looks at the Docks through the eyes of a psycho-geographer: Millennium Mills is a landmark on his journey down the Thames. Sinclair and his ilk are close cousins to explorers – he may not have attempted to get into the mills, but he is fascinated by their connections with the city, to the stories and memories entombed within their walls, and the air of dereliction around them. He celebrates dereliction for its own sake – and articulates the complex impulses that drives us on, despite the dangerous traverse into the mills, and the vertigo-inducing holes in the floorslabs.


9am lower down the mills


Looking along the southern elevation from the staircase of doom


What it says on the button …

I imagine Sinclair would love to have the opportunity that we had to wander around inside, unfettered by health & safety or Big Brother. Millennium Mills is a fantastic place if you have any feeling at all for architecture and industry. You will breathe it in with both your eyes and ears: the lino tiles peeling up at the corners; the powerful smell of bran that lingers, 17 years after the building was decommissioned; the period signage on the walls; the pipework like metal sinews, and holes rent in the walls and floors where giant pieces of equipment had been salvaged. Yet above the sixth storey, much remains, such as the power shafting with pulleys and belts, and the large electric motor which drove them. It all looks original, but may not last much longer.


Fire extinguishing kit in the transformer house


The helter-skelter grain chutes


"Spillers" fading away on the south-western gable

Millennium Mills’ future lies in the realms of high finance: a consortium led by the Japanese developer Kajima plans to turn the 60-acre site into Silvertown Quays, in the process creating 5000 new homes, and converting the Mills themselves into around 400 loft-style apartments. They have gathered a motley assortment of firms to deliver the project – including the great and the good amongst metropolitan developers, a Toronto-based masterplanner, and a London firm of architects. Unfortunately, project finance was to come from Royal Bank of Scotland … The current plan is to demolish the eastern and western wings, as well as the Rank Hovis Premier mill (aka the deathtrap) on the eastern side, leaving the main block of Millennium Mills, plus the south-western extension as a standalone tower. It seems inevitable that these great concrete granaries will end their days as a yuppie ghetto.

ps. If anyone knows who designed the mills, please let me know … because I haven't managed to find out yet (though my tentacles are feeling around in various libraries) … and ignorance of the fact is bugging me!

[skin]

They night shots are stunning. And your report is top notch

[boxfrenzy]

Smashing report mate, really well presented and lovely pictures. I'm suprised that it didn't get flattened during the blitz. Much of the area took some pretty heavy hits, and as they were building the Excel centre in the early '90's I rememeber thinking how quiet the road was as I cycled along it. As I reached the roadblock at the other end I got shouted at by a policeman who had asked me why I thought I was invincible as they were busy attending to an unexploded WW2 bomb opposite Millennium Mills. Certain buildings along the Royal Dock were left by the German Luftwaffe as a guide, so maybe this one was too? Anyway, I liked it.

[coops]

A very informative post ..loved it mate felt like i was there with ya ..10/10

[sqwasher]

Superb stuff Wolfism! Once you start reading one of your reports it just drags you in & demands you read every single word! Punctuated with stunning pics of an industrial giant-by size & by reputation! Cool!

[fiendicus]

Really like the first picture. I can imagine that this place didn't dissapoint you?

[Dmax]

was good meeting you guys , great write up dude well done

[wolfism]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I can imagine that this place didn't dissapoint you?

This was a long-held ambition, and it was even better than I hoped. It's like the British equivalent of the granaries at Buffalo in NY state.

was good meeting you guys , great write up dude well done

Great to meet you too, and cheers again for your help.

Hopefully my digging will uncover some more info. on the buildings, as there's surprisingly little out there on the net (or even in the books I've looked at so far).

[Rez]

Great report and good to meet you on the roof !
was a good night for it too,no rain !
Nice write up,and pics from you both