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Turning the wheels of history

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Forge Mill & Bordesley Abbey

Graham Mellor walks in the footsteps of medieval monks and winces at the conditions of Victorian workers in the Arrow Valley.

Jo-Ann Gloger’s job title is “Keeper of Collections, Museums & Heritage, Borough of Redditch”, which sounds a very grand and wide-ranging role.

The fact that her work is all concentrated on one site is not surprising, given Redditch’s “new town” heritage – yet there is enough history on this one spot to keep anyone interested for many a day.

And who better to show me around than Jo-Ann, who has been working here since 1989?

The site combines Forge Mill Needle Museum and Bordesley Abbey Visitor Centre, which themselves are linked through hundreds of years by man’s desire to harness the River Arrow to power water mills.

First a group of Cistercian monks rerouted and dammed the Arrow in the 12th century to power a mill believed to have been used for metal working. For more than 350 years, monks lived in the magnificent abbey, running a relatively large community until its destruction in 1538 during Henry VIII’s campaign to rid England of monasteries.

Forge Mill itself began life around 140 years later at the start of the 18th century as an iron forge, but by 1730 it had been converted to use the water power for needle scouring – the process of cleaning and polishing the sharpened and hardened needles.

Having shown me the various stages of needle-making on the upper floors of the east wing of building, Jo-Ann led the way into the gloomy basement of the scouring mill in the west, which was still operating as recently as 1958 using machinery installed in the early 18th century.

Visitors can see it working now – thanks to the dedicated help of volunteers – between 2-5pm most Saturdays and Sundays.

It is fascinating to see how the process, which basically involves wrapping up scaly needles by the thousand to be rubbed together in canvas along with some cheap materials like stone dust and soap, remained profitable for more than 200 years.

Back up on the top floor of the east wing there is a permanent exhibition showing the endless uses for the finished materials. From hypodermic needles, to those for playing gramophone records to those used to stitch thermal barrier panels to the space shuttle, there is no end to the ingenuity.

The middle floor of the east wing is used for temporary exhibitions, which during my visit was Wacky Widgets . . . did you know the Victorians invented a machine so you could give yourself a DIY nose job? This ends on May 11, and on May 17 Thr3fold-Unfolded opens – a premiere of a new collection of work by quilt experts.

The feeling at Forge Mill is, naturally, very mechanical; of things clunking, whirring and bashing. But just over the fields is a piece of history relying far more on the imagination, with a wafting soundtrack of canticles singing in your mind.

You can, literally, walk in the footsteps of 15th-century monks and even see the bottom few treads of the worn stone staircase they used to descend into the church at 2am for the night service.

There are also a number of burial chambers – the closer to the altar, the more important the buried person – with the sarcophagus believed to be that of Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, the closest of all.

He is, among other things, said to have given the abbey in 1306 “27 volumes, including religious works and courtly romances”. Who knows what the monks made of the medieval equivalent of a Mills & Boon?

The surrounding fields offer their own revelations about the monks’ lives, from their fishponds to their millpond. Much of these are humps or hollows in the grass, but with a little imagination and the booklet The Abbey Meadows Trail (available in the visitor centre shop) to guide you, the full extent of this medieval community becomes evident.

If you need more accompaniment, an audio tour provided via a hand-held device by “Brother Nicholas” may help.

Once the outdoor tour is completed, return to the visitor centre, housed in a barn transported to the site from Matchborough in 1992 and rebuilt with a cloistered extension to provide an echo of the abbey itself.

As well as gift shop, there is an exhibition of archaeological finds from the extensive excavations of the abbey, which began in 1864.

One of the most popular is a full skeleton, with bones showing clear signs of the wear and tear of medieval life, while downstairs in the cloisters is a collection of excavated oak timbers that formed part of the abbey’s mill race, all those hundreds of years ago.

On a quiet spring day, it isn’t difficult to be transported back several hundred years yourself – although it is quite a surprise to know that all of this is just a stone’s throw from the busy Sainsbury’s roundabout.

Opening times: Until September: Weekdays 11am-4.30pm, Weekends 2-5pm.
Admission: Adults £3.90, OAPs £2.95, Children £1.
Tel 01527 62509     https://www.forgemill.org.uk

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