Look carefully at the Bersham Mill building, what do you notice about it?

It is a building of two halves. The bottom section of irregular sized stones was the original Ironworks Foundry which closed around 1793. The site lay semi-derelict for over 20 years until a new flour mill was built above the old Foundry, hence that new brickwork, with access to the loft to hoist up sacks of grain. At the far end a large water-wheel (originally used in the ironworks) was installed and the original leate diverted to supply water to power this large wheel, so powerful it could drive 4 large grindstones. This made Bersham Flour Mill very significant indeed. Opened for business in 1828 this mill flourished until its closure in 1947. The large scale importation of Canadian wheat after WWII was responsible for the closure of most of these old mills. European wheat kernels are quite soft and easy to grind, but Canadian wheat kernels are much harder and required very heavy iron rollers to crush them, making a fine white flour for “nice white bread” at about a quarter of the cost of flour from those old mills. All the original milling machinery is still inside this mill, confusing visitors who thought Bersham was just an ironworks.