Worsbrough Mill and Country Park

Worsbrough Village and Worsbrough Mill Country Park in Barnsley

Worsbrough Mill and Country Park near Barnsley, you can watch flour being stone ground and then buy a bag in the mill shop to take home with you.

At Worsbrough Mill near Barnsley there’s something special about watching a mill produce flour almost 400 years after it was first built. With every turn of the seven-tonne cast-iron water wheel, tradition and history seem to come alive.

Worsbrough Mill, open seven days a week from dawn till dusk, the Country Park covers 240 acres with the Mill Museum as its centrepiece (open Sat-Wed, 11am-4pm). Behind the Mill, the 60-acre fishing reservoir built in 1804 has Local Nature Reserve status and is a haven for wildlife and rare species such as the greater crested newt and chimney sweeper moth.

Assistant Manager of Worsbrough Mill, Richard Moss, is kindly showing me round on his day off. Living on site, he gives directions and chats to visitors all week round: “It’s a way of life, rather than a job,” he tells me.

Richard joined Worsbrough in 1994 as a ranger; now he oversees the day-to-day running of the Mill and Country Park, manages two staff members and a host of volunteers, and even stands in for the miller.

A member of The Traditional Cornmillers Guild, the Mill houses the water mill dating from 1625, a recently restored steam-driven mill with a hot-bulb diesel engine dating from around 1820 and a bolting machine – a large meshed barrel that separates the grain, with cedar rings to deter flour moths. The mill’s white flour is unbleached and a few customers have returned it to the shop, thinking they’ve accidentally been sold wholemeal.

Previously, Richard worked as assistant farm manager at Wigfield farm. Run by Barnsley College, the farm is a teaching college, working farm and visitor’s centre. Its livestock grazes on the park’s meadowland and keeps it in check.

Richard also oversees the events field, home to the Barnsley Original Music (BOM) festival every July and an annual beer festival, which this year takes place on Saturday 17 September. Barnsley CAMRA will be in attendance and there will be food, craft stalls and music from up-and-coming local bands.

The park is entering a new phase with plans to increase flour production, extend the shop and add a coffee shop and children’s play area. Part of the building will also be rented out to traditional retailers: a stonemason and wrought iron-maker have already booked a unit and Worsbrough is looking for potters, glassblowers, breadmakers, cardmakers and other artisan producers who need premises.

Up at the reservoir, there’s a light breeze and a warm sun. Overlooked by Wentworth Castle, anglers are casting their lines and the hum of a lawnmower can be heard in the distance. If, as Richard says, it’s a way of life, then it’s not a bad one.