Site owners, Historic England, took leadership of the restoration project at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings in 2014.
The Flaxmill Maltings site is made up of eight listed buildings; two are restored, two more are currently undergoing restoration and four others still need funding to bring them back to life.
Completed in November 2015, the first two buildings to be converted were the Smithy and Stables.
Next, and being restored now, are the Main Mill and Kiln. The Main Mill is the first iron-framed building in the world and its pioneering iron frame is what makes this industrial heritage site internationally significant. This part of the restoration is taking place largely thanks to a £20.7 million grant from National Lottery players, through The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
It‘s a huge task fixing the enormous Main Mill and Kiln buildings. Architects, surveyors, brick specialists, builders, carpenters, ecologists, engineers, ironworkers, roofers, scaffolders (there’s been a lot of scaffolding over the years) and the project partners have worked together to solve the challenges that these historic buildings have presented, and it’s taken some modern-day innovative thinking to save and restore them.
The restoration of these two buildings started in 2017 and was completed in 2022. You can now visit the site and enjoy a revitalised Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings.
The future plan is that the remaining four derelict listed buildings on site will be restored in the coming years, once plans for how they will be used and funding to carry out the restoration works are in place.