Historic Buildings

Woodbridge Tidemill Hurst Frame remedial works

The building is an iconic grade 1, four-storey timber framed Tide Mill. It is the only one in England still making flour. A central part of the structure within the building is called the "Hurst frame." This supports the main vertical shaft and gear wheels and subsidiary shafts with four pairs of millstones. Due to rising sea levels this frame needs to be raised up on to brick pillars for the wooden structure to be saved from rotting in prolonged submersion in water, something it was never designed to do. If this work isn't carried out then the structure will become unstable and eventually unusable in the last working tide mill in the country. It is vital this work is carried out to preserve a building of high national heritage importance for today and future generations.