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  1. #1
    wolfism Guest

    Arrow Rank Hovis, Clarence Flour Mills, Hull – April ‘10

    With thanks to Runner and Chauffeur … enjoyed this place immensely. Shot on Astia using the beast, and rounded off with breakfast at a proper greasy spoon.


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    “Welcome to the New Hull”, says a giant 48-sheet billboard in the railway station: yet the making of the new city means picking apart the old one. Development is gutting the industrial district which lines the banks of the River Hull, upstream of its confluence with the Humber. Clarence Mills, right beside the Drypool Bridge, tells the story of the city’s rise and progress better than any ad campaign – because the men who built it are the men who made the original Hull. Clarence Mills was the work of Joseph Rank, who founded the Rank empire, and Alfred Gelder, Hull’s city architect and its mayor three times over.


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    A gleam of light appeared on the horizon as we made our introductions, crossed the wilderness of the mill yard, then up many flights of steel stairs until we were on the silo roof, watching a livid sun rising over Spurn Head. From our overlook, you get a panoramic view of the city: of the Arctic Corsair, beached in the mud; the winding hole opposite where barges were swung about; upriver, the gaunt form of British Extracting; Drypool Bridge’s massive counterweight and bascule in our shadow; and looking southwards, the shark’s fin of The Deep, and the space age goalpost of the Tidal Barrage. The scene was tranquil at 5am, with both dossers and posties tucked into bed, and the wider city still asleep.


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    Clarence Mills tell Kingston-on-Hull’s story: both grew up on the river, which acts as an artery for trade, and on which the city’s wealth was founded. Joseph Rank began his business with a windmill on the Holderness Road – when demand outstripped capacity, he took a share in the Holderness Corn Mill. Yet ambition pushed him further: he had seen a “roller mill” at Tadcaster, a recent innovation which used iron rollers to remove the wheat germ from the husk, rather than spinning sandstone discs. In 1885 Rank bought roller machinery from Henry Simon of Manchester, who pioneered its use in Britain, and installed it in his new Alexandra Mill. A few years later, he borrowed £14,000, bought another site on the bank of the River Hull, and commissioned the last word in milling technology from Simon: Clarence Mills was Joseph Rank’s largest enterprise to date, and became his flagship. The mill was on one side of Great Union Street (where Shotwell’s tower is now), with its silos opposite, on the site of the current mill.


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    From the rooftop, we moved into the headhouse above the silos: a fiery sun glowed through the circular windows, cutting into the gloom that pervades lines of Redler conveyors. This was where wheat entered the mill once sucked from the holds of barges using the mill’s pneumatic “loose leg”. The elevator could raise one ton of wheat per minute, and from there it was funnelled into the grain bins, which sit on piles driven deep into the alluvial mud. The silos are the oldest remaining part of the mill, for reasons that will soon become apparent. After the silo, we moved into the body of the mill itself… The scale of these spaces approaches those inside Millennium Mills: and the interior of Clarence Mills gives you a good idea what the London building must have looked like two decades ago. The milling floors have a luminous quality – the liquid light of the river is softened by the flour dust, plus the pastel colours of the equipment – and the rising sun glowed on the screens and riddles which sifted the grain.


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  2. #2
    wolfism Guest

    Default Re: Rank Hovis, Clarence Flour Mills, Hull – April ‘10

    Hull was pounded by the Luftwaffe during WW2, and one evening in May 1941 the bombing was concentrated in the Drypool area of the docks. The bombs destroyed much of the mill, and 15,000 tons of wheat poured into the river: yet the silos survived, thanks to their massive construction. By then, Joseph Rank was in his eighties, and the shock of seeing his mill reduced to rubble might have been too much for many men. Not for Rank: once he ascertained that the mill’s dray horses were safe, he decided that the mills would be rebuilt, and once again become a showpiece for his company, by now one of the world’s greatest flour millers. The rebuilding of Clarence Mills introduced many improved processes, and new types of machinery – but the process flow and layout were loosely based on that of Baltic Mills in Gateshead. Rank owned the Baltic Mills, now an art gallery; and the Rank Premier Mills in London’s docks – the rotting deathtrap next door to Millennium Mills; but Clarence Mills was the last of its generation. The machinery takes the form of a “long surface” mill, which (uniquely) could make the full range of flours: hard flours for bread; soft flours for biscuits; and wholemeal flours, too.


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    A couple of floors down through the milling building are the roller mills themselves: just like those in the original Clarence Mills, they were made by Henry Simon of Manchester, and the effect of seeing them in the flesh is jaw-dropping. Row after row of intricate belt-driven machines, fifteen feet high and running on bronze bearings, sit inside polished hardwood cases. Their long trains of pulleys and jockey wheels track back through the building to a 600bhp synchronous AC motor, made by the Electric Construction Co. of Wolverhampton, which once drove them. It was rewound as recently as the late 1990’s. The mechanical noise in here when they were running must have been like music to anyone who appreciates engineering. The machinery was split into five sections: breaker rollers; sieves; purification; grinding rollers; and finally dressing sieves made of fine nylon. En route are bag filters which separated flour from chaff and dust – and the handsome timber floors are still powdered with flour, patterned with the scurryings of mill rats. Off to one side, beside old sacks, are the dessicated remains of the mill cat.


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    Rank entrusted the rebuilding of Clarence Mills to Gelder & Kitchen, the Hull architectural practice which grew out of Alfred Gelder’s work: they are still in business today, and in fact they still design flour mills for RHM. Planning began around 1948, and the rebuilding was completed in 1952: the end result is a fine example of post-war Modernism, built in russet brick with cream precast “picture frames” around the windows. Clarence Mills was proudly referred to as the “Founder’s Mill”, and while Rank was an independent company, it remained their flagship. The buildings wrap around a courtyard, with the 10 storey silos, six storey mill, and lower offices/ labs fronting the river and Great Union Street. Their main structure is steel – Runner spotted sections supplied by Dorman Long, Appleby-Frodingham, and even the mighty Lanarkshire Steel Co. – and some parts framed in concrete. The mills are a major piece of townscape, a city-scale building which proudly asserts Hull’s milling heritage.


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    Joseph Rank Ltd. grew during Clarence Mills’ working life: in 1962, Rank bought Hovis-McDougall and became RHM, with the milling arm styled as “Rank Hovis”; in 1992 RHM was bought by the conglomerate Tomkins, who sold it to a private equity company at the turn of the millennium. RHM relisted on the stock market in 2005, and a couple of years later was swallowed up by Premier Foods. Each change saw rationalisation, and Clarence Mills eventually closed in December 2005, with the loss of 30 jobs: Rank Hovis put this down to the cost of modernising the machinery, which was archaic compared to their newer mills. Even the signage on the mills reflects how fashions changed – “Clarence Flour Mills” is set in red brick on top of the Victorian silos; elegant white enamelled lettering spells out “Joseph Rank Ltd.” on the western elevation; and backlit plastic letters over the courtyard said “Rank Hovis”, at least until a couple fell off…


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    Although English Heritage haven’t listed Clarence Mills, the architectural critic Hugh Pearman recognised their worth. and the pressure group SAVE made a valiant effort to push for their preservation, but Manor Properties plan to demolish, and build a 26-storey tower on the site. Yet the architecture, and machinery inside the mills, are probably unique in Britain. Draw your own conclusions.

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