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BBC News
6 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Blue plaque for Woodbridge Tide Mill benefactor
The woman credited with saving one of the last working tide mills in the country has been honoured with a blue plaque. Jean Gardner bought the Grade I listed Tide Mill in Woodbridge, Suffolk for £7,300 at an auction in May 1968 after hearing a lecture on its plight by local historian, Norman Scarfe. She then oversaw its restoration before gifting it to the town in generations of Mrs Gardner's extended family were at the ceremony for the unveiling alongside guests from the chair of the Woodbridge Tide Mill Museum, John Carrington, said "We are grateful to the work of the Woodbridge and Melton Society in securing this lasting tribute to the lady that saved the Mill". The earliest record of a tide mill on the River Deben site dates back to 1170. The present mill was built on the site in 1793 and didn't close until 1957. It is now the only working tide mill in the UK and still harnesses the River Deben's tides to produce stoneground Carrington said it had become a tourist attraction."It is one of the most photographed, painted and drawn buildings in the East of England, and attracts the attention and interest of mill enthusiasts worldwide," he said. Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Times
09-05-2025
- General
- Times
Tidal power was once the future, but 800 years on it's still all at sea
The first loaf of bread baked from the flour of Woodbridge tide mill was eaten by a monk from the local abbey some time in the 12th century. There has been a lot of flour since. Through the late Middle Ages, twice a day, the tide came up the River Deben, filled the mill pond, then emptied, turning a wheel that ground Suffolk flour with utter reliability. In dry periods when upriver watermills failed, or on still days when windmills didn't turn, the sea still came in and went out. The Woodbridge mill kept turning. It was turning when coal was the fuel of the future. It was turning when coal was the fuel of the past. Some 620,000 tides later, MPs have been debating
