Going Through the Mill
Flour milling is Tring’s oldest continuous business – we look at its long history.
Heygates Mill is a familiar place to the residents in Tring, and while it’s now a modern operation producing over 12 tons of flour per hour, its history extends back several hundred years, making the manufacture of flour Tring’s oldest continuous business.
Gamnel was the site of a watermill probably 200 years ago – the mill pond was not only important for milling, but was also a location for traditional baptisms too – it was close to the Baptist Chapel in New Road.
However, the pond was sold to the canal company and the outdoor baptisms stopped. Perhaps this was a good thing, because according to the Tring Vestry minutes for 1799, ‘The services were always scenes of much hostility and abuse from certain people in Tring, the participants in the service oftentimes being pelted with filthy missiles.’
The Gamnel site already had wharf land and buildings, when William Grover (or possibly his brother James) developed it further with the addition of a windmill in the early 1800s, and formed a business that sent and received goods by canal. William was listed as owning the wharf and premises in 1829, while James was the owner of the windmill and a house.
At some time after that, the partnership between the Grover brothers was dissolved, possibly over an argument concerning their father’s will, and James set up in competition with his brother, building the nearby Goldfield windmill.
William continued to run the mill with his son Thomas until 1843, until it was taken over by his sons-in-law William Mead and Richard Bailey. The mill was to remain in the Mead family for the next 100 years or so.
Mead & Bailey were not only millers, but also coal merchants, wharfingers (owners or keepers of a wharf) and water carriers. Another string to their business bow was dealing in horse manure. They imported it by canal from London, with returning boats taking hay and straw to the capital.
One of the labourers at the mill was William Massey. He and his family rented a hovel on the wharf from the millers for the grand sum of one shilling a week. His son Gerald would become known as Tring’s poet – he was a Chartist agitator who became well known not only as a poet but as an author and critic.
William Mead’s sons Edward and Thomas took over the business in the early 1850s, but by 1868 Thomas Mead was the sole owner, and he bought an adjoining plot of land facing Wingrave Road.
As in most businesses, technology moved on, and in 1875, Thomas commissioned the construction of a brick-built grain mill – at a cost of £1,246 – next to the windmill.
He made more advancements in 1894 with the installation of the new roller milling system, which ran for some time alongside the windmill. It’s believed the windmill was probably used for producing animal feed, as the roller milling invention made grain milling more efficient, and produced bettergrade flour. This new innovation put many small wind and watermills across the countryside out of business, as they couldn’t compete with bigger mills using the new system.
By the early 20th century, ownership had transferred to Thomas’ son William, who brought steam power to the mill.
A Woodhouse & Mitchell tandem compound condensing engine drove the mill for several decades until mains electricity arrived in 1946.
Gamnel Wharf tower mill was demolished on 4 May 1911, 90 years after it was constructed.
During the 1930s, the milling business came under pressure with the import of subsidised French flour, which cost 12s 6d for a 280lb sack, at a time when home-produced flour sold for at least 17 shillings a sack. The 1932 Wheat Act helped the situation, until the next crisis, when the mill was brought under the control of the Ministry of Food at the start of World War II. That control lasted until as late as 1953.
Under Ministry control the quality of flour in the Tring Mill and across the country was gradually lowered and it was no longer possible to obtain white flour. This led to the ‘National Loaf’, a wholemeal bread introduced as part of food rationing. It was fortified with added calcium and vitamins, designed to be more nutritious and make efficient use of available resources. However it was often criticised for its grey colour, mushy texture, and general lack of appeal!
Following William Mead’s death in 1941, the Heygate family business bought the mill, although it remained under the management of Ralph Seymour, who had been a minority shareholder in the Mead business.
In his memoirs he recalled: ‘After consultation, it was agreed that for the time being the Tring mill would continue trading under the name of Wm. N. Mead Ltd; three years later the trading title was revised to Meads Flour Mills Ltd., still with me in charge, and we continued under this name for a number of years.
‘Despite the limitations of continued Ministry control and shortages due to the war, I liked the Heygate approach, which was: “What can we do to modernise”, rather than the old Governor’s “Make do and mend” attitude.’
The Heygate family had close connections with the land, having farmed the same land in Northamptonshire since the 16th century. The 19th century saw them move into the milling business.
Under the auspices of the Heygate name, the buildings were extended and in the mid 50s the first pneumatic system was installed – only the third of its kind in the UK.
Today, the mill is owned by Heygates Ltd, whose transport division operates a fleet of 80 vehicles covering three milling operations (16 being based at Tring) to deliver 450,000 tons of flour annually. The mill uses a fully automated computerised installation, milling over 12 tons of flour per hour.
You can find out more about the mill’s history in an excellent, detailed article at tringhistory.tringlocalhistorymuseum.org.uk/Heygates/index.htm.
Modes of transport
By the late 19th century much of the wheat was imported from Canada and the US. It came up the canal by barge from Brentford to Bulbourne, and then was put on a horsedrawn narrowboat to reach the mill up the narrow Wendover Arm.
Before the First World War, the mill delivered its flour to places such as Chesham, Aylesbury, Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable using horse-drawn wagons. Then in 1916, a Foden steam wagon that could carry 8 tons joined the delivery team, followed a couple of years later by a 2-ton Napier lorry. After World War II, canal transport of wheat ended, and deliveries came by road instead.
By 1953, according to the Berkhamstead Gazette, the mill’s fleet included two 6-ton and three seven-ton Bedfords, a Foden lorry and trailer that could carry 15 tons. Even with the addition of a bulk grain wagon capable of hauling 13 tons of wheat from the Docks, the mill was doing so much business that local contractors had to be enlisted to help out.
Pictures: with thanks to Tring Local History & Museum Society
