A year or so before I joined People in Common had bought a derelict cornmill with a three and half acre field on the banks of the River Calder some five miles from the houses in Burnley. Continue reading Mill owners out on a stroll
During the autumn after the construction of the Cruck Barn in Ulverston a small team of us set to work fitting out the top two floors of the ‘square side’ of the Mill. Continue reading Doing Up The Mill – Again (& other work)
A number of different strands of what we had done before and what our needs were when we had moved into the Mill came together at the end of the 1980s and led to the setting up of Altham Harwood Centre Continue reading Seeing the Wood and the Trees
I remember talking about how we might finally move from our terraced houses in Burnleywood to The Mill at Altham. I had one fantasy that we could do the removal….. Continue reading Doing up the Mill (Part 6) – Moving in
By the time we were starting to fit out the Mill in the mid 1980’s the Dutch Elm epidemic had reached parts of Lancashire and there were stands of dead mature elms that were being cut down and burnt by woodland owners and local authorites across the north of England. Continue reading Doing Up the Mill (Part 5)
A DERELICT cornmill will one day be the home of a “good life” workers co-operative. But until then, members of the Burnley group People In Common, are having to endure the hard life converting it into living accommodation. Continue reading Doing Up The Mill (part 3)
It was a big blow to realise that we wouldn’t get any grant funding to help us renovate the Mill. There was talk of selling it and focussing on the houses in Burnley. But that seemed too much like giving up on a dream. Continue reading Doing Up The Mill (part 2)
I know you are supposed to be able to remember exactly where you were when you heard of some great historic moment that happened in your lifetime – But I’m sorry but I don’t know where I was when I heard : man had set foot on the moon……… Continue reading Hiding from the BOSS
So how do you turn a derelict mill into a thriving community with a handful of semi-skilled enthusiasts, no money, whilst bringing up small children (some of them being home schooled.) and at the same time being involved in local political campaigning ? Continue reading Doing Up The Mill (part 1)
So most of the stories that we told ourselves back in the 1970s & ’80s about the Mill turn out to have some basis in history – even if we didn’t get the facts or dates quite right. Continue reading Notes on the history of Altham Corn Mill
