Woolly says – The latest storm to hit the UK had done its worst leaving us with no Wi-Fi for a couple of days resulting in us sitting in the warm watching the winds lash the trees outside and consuming box sets of DVDs. With the Wi-Fi finally back Jo and I settled down to catch up on missed messages and emails only for the power to go and leave us sitting in the dark and cold with only candles to light our way, I took myself off to bed telling the human to wake me once normal service had been resumed.

By Wednesday things were getting desperate, and we had run out of milk for the humans coffee, Jaffa cakes to feed the human and even worse the pistachio tub was empty, we had to head out so we decided to take a chance and see if we could visit somewhere.

Heading over the border towards Shrewsbury we passed workmen clearing fallen trees and skirted round flooded areas, road signs were no longer attached to posts but lay on the side of the road, at least we only had inconvenience to deal with and no actual damage.

Woolly says – Pulling up onto the carpark we both stood and admired the very impressive building in front of us.

Ditherington Flax Mill (known as the Shrewsbury Flax mill Maltings), is a former flax mill located in Ditherington, a suburb of Shrewsbury, England and is the first iron-framed building in the world, and described as “the grandfather of skyscrapers”,  although it is only five-storeys high which makes it very small by todays standards. Its importance was officially recognised in the 1950s, resulting in it becoming a Grade I listed building.

Architect Charles Bage, designed the mill using an iron framed structure, inspired by the work of William Strutt. The columns and crossbeams were made by William Hazledine at his foundry in Shrewsbury, with construction of the mill taking from 1796 to 1797 to complete.

The mill closed in 1886 and was then converted to a maltings mill (hence its more commonly used local name), and as a consequence many windows were bricked up. With the maltings closed in 1987, it was taken over by English Heritage in 2005.

We wandered around the exterior finding all sorts of buildings including the former stables and smithy along with small cat holes

for the pussy population which had once kept the site mouse free.

The crowning glory was the Jubilee Tower which was constructed in 1897 as part of the transformation of the site from a flax mill to a barley maltings. It housed the machinery that powered the grain elevators that moved the barley around the buildings, but also honoured Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Sadly it was difficult to get a picture as it comes out of the main building.

With paws and fingers freezing from the outside temperatures we headed into the warmth to have a look at the museum.

The very modern interior gave us lots of information on the mill with cases showing us items that had been discovered during the refurbishment of the site.

Interactive displays allowed us to see how the mill had worked and what functions some of the machinery had had.

One exhibit told us all about the brick tax which had resulted in buildings being taxed on every brick used in their construction from 1784 to raise money for the war in the British colonies. Locals’ builders found a way of getting round this by using much bigger bricks until the government caught on and started adding a double tax to the larger bricks.

Next to the brick was a small model of the famous ironwork structure that had given the mill its claim to fame and one of the former beams.

Moving into the next room we sat and watched a video of the mill and how it had looked in its working past.

With the film finished we headed into the last area which contained some more of the discoveries made from the mill along with a large coal furnace which would be rather nice to have lit given the cold.

With icicles starting to form on my tusks we stopped to admire the former apprentice house which in the 1800’s would have been filled with children from the workhouses who were given bed and board for their graft but no wages for the first five years of their employment.

With the café next to it we dived in and warmed up over hot chocolate and cake before taking a closer look at the lift tower, a lovely wooden addition to the side of the building where raw materials would have been taken to the higher floors for processing.

With the site completed and the biting wind chilling us to the bone we headed back to the car with our shopping list to complete on the drive home.