Report - Spillers Silo & Ford flour mill, Avonmouth - Nov 2014

WhoDaresWins · May 26, 2015

Visited with @Seffy

Both of these reside with Avonmouth docks. We visited both of these in one night after a lot scoping access to the dock. Being night we had to light paint with our torches, how we didn't get noticed I will never know! A thoroughly enjoyable explore I highly advise people see these before they are gone forever.

Note though that these are infested with pigeons. Particularly the Spillers Grain silo!

Spillers Grain Silo

The Spillers mill at Avonmouth was one designed by Oscar Faber. Grinding and milling grains produces both heat and fine dust — an instant fire hazard. Reinforced concrete, with its inbuilt fire resistance, became a common choice for constructing mills and other industrial buildings. It was also relatively cheap and easy to use. Avonmouth Mill comprised grain silos, a mill and a warehouse and was built to produce feed for cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry. It also milled flour and manufactured dry pet food.

The mills designed by Faber, who also acted as the architect, were equipped by Spillers with the most modern equipment then available. In 1934 it was claimed that “human hands do not touch Spillers' flour from the moment it enters the grain silo as wheat to the final stage of its being sewn up in sacks as pure white flour”.

Wheat from the silos was taken to the mill and sieved, washed, dried and polished before being ground between steel rollers to remove the husk from the kernel. The husk was used for animal feed and the kernel was milled to produce white flour. The bagged flour was dropped down spiral sack chutes that extended through all floors.

Avonmouth Mill ceased operation in 1998 and the mill itself and the warehouse were demolished some time after that. The derelict grain silos remain on the dockside.