School Visits to a Working Water Mill

School visit arrangements - Contact the Mill DIRECT to book
Resource Book - study themes
Your research project on BREAD
1812 - when the Mill was built
Worksheet 1 to print out (Mills of the River Dour)
Other places to visit nearby
Group accommodation
Quick tour of the mill

The Mill is open to schools and other organised groups when not open to the public, subject to prior arrangement. Contact the Mill DIRECT to discuss arrangements (this site cannot help with bookings):


Picture: two miller-guides show a school group how the pattern of grooves on the millstones is re-cut after several weeks of wear.

They explain how grain feeds into the millstones from the hopper (foreground), before starting up the waterwheel to demonstrate how flour is made.

The Mill offers rich possibilities for links to the National Curriculum especially at Key Stages 2 or 3 in History (Victorians), Science (simple machines, sorting and separating materials), Geography (rivers) and Design Technology (how the mill works).

Your guide will tailor the visit to suit your school's curriculum needs. The Teachers Resource Book is detailed below and there are fact sheets and a study area available.


Hand querns

The Mill has a set of hand querns for groups of children to experiment with grinding flour by hand. Grain is supplied as part of the price.They soon find out just how much work is done by the waterpower!

They can also compare different types of quern - from Neolithic "rubbing two stones together", to the Roman-style rotary quern, which would have been worked by a slave.

To book, or if you want to know more, phone the Mill direct:
01304 823292
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"Crabble Corn Mill - A Resource Book for Teachers"

£4.00 from the Mill, including post & packing. It includes 48 pages of photocopiable material and has been prepared by Stephen Scoffham, a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church College and author of numerous books and articles on primary school geography.

The Resource Book (contents listed below) gives invaluable help for planning your visit and preparing the class.

Study Themes:

Activity Sheets:
  • 1. The story of Crabble Corn Mill
  • 2. Flour Milling
  • 3. Machines and Mechanisms
  • 4. Water Power Technology
  • 5. Wheat
  • 6. Mill Architecture
  • 7. The Mill Pond
  • 8. Restoring the Mill
  • 1. The Site
  • 2. Flour Milling
  • 3. Machines and Mechanisms
  • 4. Harnessing Energy
  • 5. Using Water Power
  • 6. Diet
  • 7. Mill Snakes and Ladders
  • 8. Architecture
  • 9. Mill Model
  • 10. The Mill Pond
  • 11. Saving Crabble Mill
  • 12. Mill Crossword
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Your research project on bread

If you want to find out about the whole story of how wheat is grown, its grain harvested and milled into flour, and the flour then baked to make bread - here are some web links to help your research.

1. This site will show you how bread is actually made from start to finish, in three different stages: The Farm, The Mill and The Bakery -

http://www.botham.co.uk/seed/how.htm

2. Another part of the same site has excellent fact sheets for older students and teachers on the story behind a loaf of bread, covering:

http://www.botham.co.uk/bread/index.htm

3. For other links to bread recipes and all about bread, go to the search engine/catalogue:

http://www.yahooligans.com/Around_the_World/Food_and_Eating/Recipes_and_Cooking/Bread/

Other Places to Visit nearby

The Mill and its pond lie on the upper reaches of the river Dour in the village of River, which is really on the northern outskirts of Dover. The river Dour is a chalk stream offering an interesting and internationally rare habitat, and can be used for a range of investigative activities such as pond-dipping.

Watch the wildlife on the mill pond and follow the Upper Dour River Walk (there is a trail guide you can print out) upstream to nearby (about 1km) Kearsney Abbey, Russell Gardens, and further afield for country walks in the Alkham Valley.

In the opposite direction down the valley there are a number of more modern watermills featured in the Dour Valley Trail. In the town itself, visit the Dover Museum with the outstanding new Bronze Age Boat gallery, the Roman Painted House - or Dover Castle which imposes itself over the town and the seafront.

Note: many experienced school trip organisers would urge that it is much better to make two separate visits than to plan too much for one day.

Click here to leave the site for Information about Dover and White Cliffs Country or South East England - please come back soon!
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Group Accommodation

Dover Youth Hostel has space suitable for school parties and is within walking distance of the Mill and other Dover attractions.

Contact: YHA Dover, 306 Dover Rd, DOVER Kent CT17 0SY
Tel: 01304-201314 e-mail: dover@yha.org.uk website: http://www.yha.org.uk

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Copyright © 1996-2002 Ian Killbery This update:14th July 2002
Crabble Corn Mill, Dover is supported by Invicta Media