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Good news from the Mills Archive Trust.   A crop of postcards depicting several Hampshire mills will soon be available for all to see on the website: www.millsarchive.com .  They are excellent photographs made into postcards, probably taken in the early 20^th century.  Among the mills featured are Westley, Durley, Sherfield and Botley. The number of volunteers is steadily growing but there is plenty of opportunity for more with a few hours to spare once a week or once a month.  The Foundation Collection of J. Kenneth Major is currently providing lots of work in the scanning and cataloguing of albums and reports on mills nationwide.  This Collection carries a rarity in the recording of animal powered mills as well as water and wind power - an area few other collectors appear to have touched upon.

Debra Nicholson has been busy again on behalf of the Morse Wind Engine Park in Norfolk. In an article carried by www.windmillworld.com Debra is inviting us all to contact her regarding a proposal for us to subscribe as individual members of the renowned Morse’s Wind Engine Park.  Subscriptions would go to the upkeep of this marvellous collection and you would receive twice yearly newsletters called “The Morse Messenger”.  You can contact her on:

E-mail:- debranicholson@windengines.com or by Post to: - Mrs Debra Nicholson, Morse's Wind Engine Park, Marsh View, Staithe Road, Repps, Norfolk NR29 5JU. Telephone: - 01692 672155

Up country in Yorkshire, Morrisons Supermarkets have been given planning permission to renovate a 19^th century windmill as part of a huge superstore development in Goole; the ground floor of the windmill would be used for storage.  Capitalizing on the lure of windmills, Diarmuid Gavin (the one-time television landscape gardener/presenter) can be seen promoting Morrisons’ bread, along with a grain hopper and windmill, in commercials which can be viewed on the internet: www.visit4info.com/advert  as well as on television.

Denver Windmill, in the far north of Norfolk, which gave us a super stop on our Norfolk Mills Tour a couple of years ago, has hit the headlines in local newspapers owing to a dispute with the owners and the managing body.  It is hoped that differences can be resolved and this fine mill will get the repairs it needs and doesn’t get the closure being threatened.

Meanwhile in Devon, we learn that the Tweed Mill at the Cider Press Centre on the Dartington Estate has had a new turbine fitted in a venture costing £700,000.  Part of this cost went towards the creation of  special entrances and exits for the five colonies of bats (Greater and Lesser Horseshoe, Myotis, Brown and Long Eared and Pipistrelle).  The turbine is expected to generate 12 to 14 megawatts per hour powered by a new 3 kilowatt hydro plant serving 4 households, with the generator working 65 per cent of the year.  Huge savings will be made in reducing the estate’s carbon footprint.  Dr John Rae, Dartington Estate's sustainability officer, said: "There is potential to make money and reduce our carbon footprint further. We're still working towards being carbon neutral by 2015. Thanks to the repair work we've done on the weir on the Bidwell stream, we see fish migrating up stream for the first time in 40 years”  Environment Agency experts who contend that turbines damage fish may wish to observe Dr. Rae’s comments that "Before the work, fish couldn't go back up stream. Our work on the Tweed Mill is good for the fish, good for the bats and good for us as it powers our cider press e-commerce operation building."

Heage Windmill has clocked up a first in engaging the first female windmill flour miller in England.  The wonderfully named Holly Wheat joins our illustrious HMG member, Mildred Cookson (flour miller at Mapledurham Watermill) as unique millers in the 21^st Century.  There have been many lady millers in the past but these are the only two commercially producing flour.

Good luck to both ladies, now how about some more of you out there!