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Cheddleton Flint Mill, Cheddleton, Staffordshire - Caldon Canal

We visited the flint mill in early August 2007. Situated right next to the Caldon Canal, which was used to transport the raw and finished materials to and fro.

Cheddleton Flint Mill is a fine example of a water mill that ground flint, a silicate, for use in the Staffordshire pottery industry. The mill was working right up to 1963 and was reopened in 1969 as a museum. The museum is staffed mainly by volunteers working to maintain this important heritage site.

The compact site gives a complete overview of the industrial and personal aspects of life at the mill within the five main buildings. Starting at the canal-side, where the flints were delivered in loads of about 20 tonnes by horse-drawn 'butty' narrowboat barges, like the resident 'Vienna' and unloaded, originally by hand on to the wharf. From the wharf they were taken in batches to the adjacent kilns for 'calcining'; roasting the flint at extreme temperatures to make the rocks brittle ready for crushing.

From the kilns the now cracked and brittle flints were placed in a wheeled but loose bodied wagon on rails and moved to the ground floor of the North Mill (furthest building from the canal) under a hoist, that you can see would have lifted the body of the wagon up through a trap door, on to the pan room floor above.

The flint was placed in the grinding pan in batches of over a tonne and ground together with water to make a liquid mixture called 'slop' looking a bit like banana yogurt! The process continued with sieving, washing and drying.

The other buildings on the site on the River Churnet are a Crushing Mill, The South Mill and Millers Cottage. The Crushing Mill was used to crush mineral ores, flint and stone; The South Mill site was originally occupied by a corn mill, then a mill for the early cloth industry and eventually for grinding slip colours for the potteries. The ground floor of the Millers Cottage is open to the public, with domestic and personal artifacts of the era on show. A typical 'cottage garden' finishes off the picture with a splash of colour in summer.

There are moorings close by that are very popular in summer. We moored opposite the restaurant, just down the canal, on the old wharf adjacent to 'The Old Dock House'; a restored Methodist Chapel and Caldon Canal building owned by British Waterways.

You can of course visit the mill by road off the A520 at Bridge 42, Cheddleton. There is limited parking for cars only.

OS Grid: SJ 972526

MAP

Open all year Mon - Fri 1000 - 1700 but phone ahead to make sure a volunteer has opened up. Tel: 01782 502907

Sat, Sun 1400 -1700

Admission is free! Donations welcome.

Cheddleton Flint Mill
Leek Road, Cheddleton,
Staffordshire

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