This blog post shows you what your flour purchases will help fund over the coming weeks as we embark on repairs costing over £6,000.00!

2024 is going to be an expensive year. Owning a Grade 2* listed building, as some of you will know is both a blessing and a curse – huge enjoyment, but the responsibility of maintainance and upkeep of the historic building fabric.

The hideous weather of the last winter has taken its toll and this year, we are faced with significant costs repairing the brickwork of the mill tower, in particular the North face. The mill is constructed of soft Cambridegshire bricks – yellow bricks which are then coated in coal tar, the traditional way to keep the rainwater out. This works well on the sides of the mill which get sunlight – what water does get through cracks in the tar evaporates out as the wall surface heats in the sunlight. Sadly, the sun does not reach the North face of the mill and consequently, water gets trapped. With last winter’s extremely wet weather, we have had the double whammy of soaking wet brickwork and then frost heave on those cold winter nights (yes, we had enough to cause major damage….).

You can see this with my explanation on our Facebook feed:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/942736880624897

The video above shows the result – bricks which have disintegrated or been badly damaged as the fronts of the bricks break away due to frost heave. All of this has to be repaired. So far, our brick / lime mortar specialist has replaced 30 bricks as he has rebuilt sections of the tower wall before repointing it. This is done with lime mortar, so that the tower can breathe and absorb the movement which occurs as the mill works – turning into wind and the sails rotating.

Once the new lime mortar is dry, the tower will be re-coated in tar in the traditional way as this still offers the best waterproofing.

In addition to this, we will also re-coat the mill cap in fibreglass this year and carry out a range of other maintenance tasks. The bill will be in excess of £6,000.00, so your help by purchasing our flour is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for any help you provide by buying our flour.

With Easter around the corner, please see below the dates on which our mail order service will be closed for staff holidays:

Closed from 20th March 2024 until 2nd April.

Orders received on the 20th March will be processed before our break, then again on the 2nd April.

The mill shop remains open, so customers who can come to the mill will be welcomed on the 21st March and the 28th March!

Happy Easter Everyone!

#RealBreadWeek is upon us and what better way than to re-stock your larder than with some of our new high protein milling wheat & flours, milled from wheat grown by Angus McDowall of North Berwick.

Reduced Prices

We are pleased to have been able to pass on some of the price reductions we have achieved in purchasing this latest harvest. You will recall that grain prices for the 2022 harvest rocketed after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Thankfully, the market has calmed down somewhat and as a result, we have passed on savings to you on all our grains and most of our flour products.

New High Protein Milling Wheat

We have recently taken delivery of Mulika variety wheat grown in North Berwick. The 2023 harvest turned out to be a real headache for us millers. Drought in the early summer of 2023 meant the spring sown grain crops struggled for lack of moisture at a key period in the growing cycle, especially in the South East and East Anglia. As a result most of the usual farms we would by from produced grains which were pinched (small and shrivelled) leading to poor Bushel weights. Whilst protein levels were good, the high proportion of bran to starch (too little starch), meant either millers had to blend parcels of wheat together (something we don’t have the space to do), or to go further afield. Thankfully, the cooler growing conditions of the North East enabled Angus to grow a crop with fuller grains and our new flour has a protein content of 13.2%.

Our new flours and high protein grain have all the qualities you would expect from the Priors Flour and, cheaper prices to boot! See our test bakes – sourdough by hand & machine bakes!

As we come to the end of 2023, the Prior’s Flour team wishes all our customers, friends and supporters a Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year! We’ve not had any snow as yet, but Prior’s Flour HQ is certainly looking festive:

Opening Times & Last Order Dates Christmas 2023

Mail Order

Last orders to guarantee Christmas delivery / click & collect are Wednesday 20th December. Orders after this date will be processed early in the New Year.

Shop

The Mill Shop will open on the 21st December 9am to 1pm and then re-open on the 4th January 9am to 1pm.

Thank you!

Finally, we’d like to thank you for your continued support purchasing the Prior’s Flour. We’ve had a tremendous year supplying our domestic and trade customers all over the UK. Our new shop and packing shed commissioned in Janaury 2023 has been put to full use. We took on the lease of a local barn to store grain in April 2023. This has provided us with a greatly increased capacity for grain storage close to the mill, significantly reducing the food miles of many of the organic grains we mill.

We look forward to working with you in 2024, helping you bake fantastic bread and cakes or simply enjoying our traditional milling heritage.

Sarah Dodge, Tim Young and Jon Cook – the Prior’s Flour Team xxx

We are pleased to add some Christmas Cheer to this year’s proceedings by unveiling lower prices for our spelt and rye products. These are now live on the website and in-store.

We ran a successful promotion during November offering you 20% off our rye products. Now, given reductions in the prices of spelt and rye grains, we are able to extend price reductions on a longer-term basis (not quite the full 20% of late, but not far off!). Just as inflation in the UK is falling, so too are the prices for grains. The price of grain is impacted by international trading markets, the farmer’s input costs (fuel, seed, labour etc), processing costs (cleaning the grain and moving it) and the quality of harvests. 2022 saw an unprecedented rise in the price per tonne of all the grains we mill. Thankfully, these cost pressures are now easing and, as we begin milling new season grains, we can pass these reductions on to you!

Christmas Opening Hours & Last Date for Mail Order / Click & Collect