Our National Lottery Heritage Fund Story - “Where there’s a mill, there’s a way!”
The Town Mill Lyme Regis is a mill with an incredible story – and it’s claimed, the best documented history of any mill in the UK. Today, we continue to benefit from all this beautiful site has to offer – but it wasn’t always so.
Back in 1991, the local district council announced plans to demolish the derelict Town Mill. The legacy of a thousand years of milling here was about to come to an end.
But a group of local residents came together to oppose the council’s plans. They formed The Town Mill Trust and raised over £500,000 – including the support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund - to finance this brave undertaking of saving the derelict site with the ambition to get the mill wheels turning once again.
The Town Mill was brought back to life.
On 26th May 2001, after a lengthy project and a huge community effort, the novelist John Fowles formally opened the restored Town Mill to the public and flour was milled for the first time in seventy-five years.
The Town Mill has continued ever since to be a cherished home for artisan and heritage businesses, the arts and of course, has forged a pedigree in milling flours with traditional and wholesome credentials.
Moving into the 2020’s, a strong & new vision started to crystallise within the Trust’s Board. This vision focused on “Developing the Mill and Its Spaces” – in practice, this meant making the mill sustainable and fit for future generations (operationally, environmentally & accessibly), growing the site as a true hub for community & new visitors, as well as improving the mill as a heritage attraction.
This vision represented the next substantial phase in the Mill’s development since the original award from The National Lottery Heritage Fund in the mid 1990’s which was at the cornerstone of the mill’s revitalisation
Building on the ambition to realise the outcomes of the new vision, the Trust undertook an intensive period of ground-work to establish its re-generation and improvement priorities for the mill. This was a lengthy and complex process involving obtaining planning permissions, listed building consent and contractor quotes for the Trust’s plans; the conclusion from this phase of the planning was clear - the Trust would have to seek external financial support if it were to realise its ambition of securing the mill and its heritage for the future, as well as look carefully at its own finances to see what it could commit.
The result however, was that in September 2024 the Trust community were absolutely delighted that their application for a grant of just over £127,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund was successful, that grant being part of almost £200,000’s worth of project work with further funding generously provided by supporters Lyme Regis Town Council, Dorset Council's Cultural Fund, Low Carbon Dorset, the Medlock Fund, Garfield Weston and the Town Mill Trust itself.
Chair of The Town Mill Trust Lyme Regis, Rob McLaughlin, says “The team at the Town Mill, trustees, volunteers and local businesses, would like to say a big thank you to everyone who buys a National Lottery ticket, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and to the other funders who have contributed. This funding secured the historic mill’s future at the heart of the town.”
This funding will enable huge improvements across the site, including a new access gate down to the Miller’s Garden from River Lim footpath and other metal work, designed by local artist Hugh Dunford-Wood and fabricated by Arc Edge Metalwork in Bridport. A new door will welcome visitors into the shop and mill itself, which will host a simpler, clearer, more accessible exhibition about the Mill’s history and its important in the Lyme Regis community.
The addition of solar panels (PV’s) on the Malthouse Gallery and new lighting around site will ensure that the Mill satisfies its environmental and sustainability responsibilities into the future, further enhanced by an ambitious new automated “debris scraper” which will keep the mill’s hydroelectric system running efficiently.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund funding also gives a massive boost to the Trust’s plans to encourage more local people and hard-to-reach groups to visit and use facilities at the mill, by funding the employment of an additional member of staff, dedicated to expanding the mill’s community involvement.
We are very excited by that the future holds and look forward to sharing the stories of our projects unfolding with you here – click on the links below to find out more about what we have achieved so far :
September 2024
A suite of photovoltaic’s installed on the roof of The Malthouse Gallery :
December 2025
Improvements to the Town Mill’s Hydroelectric System with the support of Low Carbon Dorset & The National Lottery Heritage Fund :
January 2025
Alastair McGoldrick of Arc Edge Metalwork - and a member of The Guild of Master Craftsmen - implemented a project to replace railings around the Malthouse Gallery
