• Home
  • Asylums & Hospitals
    • Barrow Gurney Hospital
    • Brecon and Radnor Asylum - Talgarth
    • Cane Hill Asylum
    • Frenchay Hospital
    • Frenchay Hospital Mortuary
    • High Royds Asylum
    • Severalls Mental Hospital
    • Standish Hospital
    • St Cadoc's Hospital
    • St Clements Psychiatric Hospital - East London
    • Vagrant Cells - Melton Mowbray
  • High Stuff
    • Aldgate Tower Crane - London
    • Bayscape Tower Crane - Cardiff
    • Canons Marsh Crane - Bristol
    • Froomsgate House - Bristol
    • Newport Transporter Bridge
    • No. 3 Gasometer - Bath
    • No. 7 Gas Holder - Battersea
    • Simplyhealth Offices Crane - Bristol
    • Tees Transporter Bridge
    • The Forth Bridge
    • Warrington Transporter Bridge
  • Industrial
    • A Bond Tobacco Warehouse
    • Battersea Power Station
    • Celuan Wool Mill - Talybont
    • Coryton Refinery Power Station
    • CWM Coke Works
    • Ford Grain Silo - Avonmouth
    • Gloster Aircraft Company - Bentham Works
    • Granary No. 5 - Avonmouth
    • Healings Mill - Tewkesbury
    • Intier Automotive - Bristol
    • Lafarge Cement Works - Westbury
    • Leri Tweed Mill - Talybont
    • Longfords Mill - Stroud
    • Lostock Power Station
    • Mckechnie Brass - Aldridge
    • Morlands Tannery - Glastonbury
    • NGTE Pyestock
    • NT Frost Electroplating
    • Penallta Colliery
    • Pine End Works
    • Sharpness Grain Silo
    • Spillers Millennium Mills
    • Spillers Silo - Avonmouth
    • Spondon H Power Station
    • Tone Mills
    • Tower Colliery
    • Vencel Resil
    • Wansbrough Paper Mill
    • Welton Bibby and Baron - Midsomer Norton
  • Leisure
    • Birmingham Central Library
    • Bristol Ice Rink
    • Bristol North Baths
    • Odeon Cinema - Portsmouth
    • Oriental City
    • The Broadway Cinema - Bristol
    • The Palladium Cinema - Midsomer Norton
  • Military
    • Avro Shackleton MR3
    • Bletchley Park - G Block
    • Farleigh Down Tunnel
    • Hallen ROC Post
    • RAF Greenham Common (GAMA)
    • Royal Military Academy Woolwich
    • Wentworth D-Day Control Bunker
  • Underground
    • Bethel Quarry
    • Coulsdon Deep Shelter
    • Dreadnaught (Malago Stormwater Interceptor)
    • Finsbury Park Reservoir
    • Kingsway Telephone Exchange
    • Oslo Nuclear Fallout Shelters
  • Other
    • Abandoned Farmhouse - Bristol
    • Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
    • Coal Exchange - Cardiff
    • Crookham Court Manor/School
    • Farnham Police Station
    • Hampton House
    • Home Farm & Farmhouse
    • Ingelbourne Manor - Malmesbury
    • Lloyds Bank - Bristol
    • New Bridewell Police Station
    • North Leamington High School
    • Prinknash Abbey
    • Salston Manor Hotel
    • Silverlands Orphanage
    • St Joseph's Missionary College
    • St Michael on the Mount Without Church
    • The Abbey School Tewkesbury
    • The Hobbit House
  • Links

Spillers Millenium Mills


PictureMillennium Mills in 1934
April 2014

London’s Royal Victoria Dock was once a hotbed of industry and commerce. In particular, this waterfront location was home to some of the nation’s leading flour mills: namely the Rank Hovis Premier Mill, and that vast behemoth of the industrial revolution known as Millennium Mills.

Millennium Mills is located in London’s Royal Victoria Dock. The mill first operated towards the start of the 20th century, when this Docklands site served as Britain’s largest centre for flour milling. Sat on the Thames bank, it was well connected with both water and rail routes, which allowed the site to thrive for many years. 

The Silvertown Confectionary Mill was the first at this location, built in 1901, and followed soon after when Joseph Rank Limited opened their Premier Mill in 1904. The third and largest installation would follow in 1905: Millennium Mills itself, a vast facility built by the company Vernon & Sons. Between them, these three mills represented the largest milling companies in the nation; the largest in the empire in fact. Grain was shipped from foreign ports to be unloaded at the Royal Docks, before being processed to flour by these three giant mills.

In its heyday, Millennium Mills was able to process 100 sacks per hour in a vast, double-plant which W. A. Vernon once boasted as “palatial.” Vernon, whose award-winning ‘Millennium Flour’ was already a palpable success in the mining districts of Northern England, now began to saturate the London and Southern markets as well.

In 1917 however, a disaster struck which would ultimately help to put Vernon out of business. The nearby Brunner Mond’s munitions factory, situated on North Woolwich Road, had been secluded for the mass production of explosives as a part of Britain’s war effort. An accident at the factory caused a large explosion, just 100 yards from the Millennium Mills building. The mill’s grain stores and silos were badly hit, sending burning chaff high up into the air.

According to the Port of London Authority, an estimated 17 acres were affected by the blast. JJ Betts, a fireman on the scene, described: “flying showers of millions of tiny particles of light as though a sweeping storm of sleet had become incandescent,” adding, “It was like a golden rainstorm.”

The accident crippled Vernon & Sons, who in 1920 were taken over by Spillers Limited. Millennium Mills was rebuilt in 1933, into a 10-storey art deco building, and in this form it enjoyed a brief return to form until the bombing raids of WWII. During the war, London’s docks became a prime target for air attacks. Both Millennium Mills and Rank’s Premier Mill were struck, suffering large-scale destruction to the buildings and facilities.

Once again, the docks were rebuilt. From 1945-50, the Royal Victoria Dock area underwent its largest reconstruction project yet; finally, in September 1953, the mills were put back into action. They would serve like this for another three decades, until the Royal Docks were eventually closed for good in 1981. This put an end to the local milling industry.


Copyright © 2015 Stray Off The Path
  • Home
  • Asylums & Hospitals
    • Barrow Gurney Hospital
    • Brecon and Radnor Asylum - Talgarth
    • Cane Hill Asylum
    • Frenchay Hospital
    • Frenchay Hospital Mortuary
    • High Royds Asylum
    • Severalls Mental Hospital
    • Standish Hospital
    • St Cadoc's Hospital
    • St Clements Psychiatric Hospital - East London
    • Vagrant Cells - Melton Mowbray
  • High Stuff
    • Aldgate Tower Crane - London
    • Bayscape Tower Crane - Cardiff
    • Canons Marsh Crane - Bristol
    • Froomsgate House - Bristol
    • Newport Transporter Bridge
    • No. 3 Gasometer - Bath
    • No. 7 Gas Holder - Battersea
    • Simplyhealth Offices Crane - Bristol
    • Tees Transporter Bridge
    • The Forth Bridge
    • Warrington Transporter Bridge
  • Industrial
    • A Bond Tobacco Warehouse
    • Battersea Power Station
    • Celuan Wool Mill - Talybont
    • Coryton Refinery Power Station
    • CWM Coke Works
    • Ford Grain Silo - Avonmouth
    • Gloster Aircraft Company - Bentham Works
    • Granary No. 5 - Avonmouth
    • Healings Mill - Tewkesbury
    • Intier Automotive - Bristol
    • Lafarge Cement Works - Westbury
    • Leri Tweed Mill - Talybont
    • Longfords Mill - Stroud
    • Lostock Power Station
    • Mckechnie Brass - Aldridge
    • Morlands Tannery - Glastonbury
    • NGTE Pyestock
    • NT Frost Electroplating
    • Penallta Colliery
    • Pine End Works
    • Sharpness Grain Silo
    • Spillers Millennium Mills
    • Spillers Silo - Avonmouth
    • Spondon H Power Station
    • Tone Mills
    • Tower Colliery
    • Vencel Resil
    • Wansbrough Paper Mill
    • Welton Bibby and Baron - Midsomer Norton
  • Leisure
    • Birmingham Central Library
    • Bristol Ice Rink
    • Bristol North Baths
    • Odeon Cinema - Portsmouth
    • Oriental City
    • The Broadway Cinema - Bristol
    • The Palladium Cinema - Midsomer Norton
  • Military
    • Avro Shackleton MR3
    • Bletchley Park - G Block
    • Farleigh Down Tunnel
    • Hallen ROC Post
    • RAF Greenham Common (GAMA)
    • Royal Military Academy Woolwich
    • Wentworth D-Day Control Bunker
  • Underground
    • Bethel Quarry
    • Coulsdon Deep Shelter
    • Dreadnaught (Malago Stormwater Interceptor)
    • Finsbury Park Reservoir
    • Kingsway Telephone Exchange
    • Oslo Nuclear Fallout Shelters
  • Other
    • Abandoned Farmhouse - Bristol
    • Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
    • Coal Exchange - Cardiff
    • Crookham Court Manor/School
    • Farnham Police Station
    • Hampton House
    • Home Farm & Farmhouse
    • Ingelbourne Manor - Malmesbury
    • Lloyds Bank - Bristol
    • New Bridewell Police Station
    • North Leamington High School
    • Prinknash Abbey
    • Salston Manor Hotel
    • Silverlands Orphanage
    • St Joseph's Missionary College
    • St Michael on the Mount Without Church
    • The Abbey School Tewkesbury
    • The Hobbit House
  • Links