Report - Spillers' Tyne Mill, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne - January 2011.

[AJ]

Site: Spillers' Tyne Mill, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne

Status: Vacant

History: Tyne Mill is one of a trio of mills designed by Oscar Faber for Spillers Ltd — the others are in Cardiff and Avonmouth — and led to subsequent commissions from the company. Spillers began with a single mill in Bridgwater in around 1833, and during the 20th centruy had mills all over Britain.

Spillers’ operations were flour milling and manufacturing animal feeds, and they came to Newcastle in 1896. Grinding grain to flour produces both heat and fine dust — a combination guaranteed to be a fire hazard. The fire retardant properties of reinforced concrete, and its relative cost effectiveness, made it a popular choice for mills and other industrial buildings.

Tyne Mill comprises 96 grain silos in a single block and an attached mill building. Both are founded on some 2,000 bearing piles between 5.5m long at the west end of the silos and 13.7m long at the east end of the mill. Each pile is 406mm square reinforced concrete and was designed for a loading of 61 tonnes.

The silos can hold 40,640 tonnes of grain and occupy an area 67.1m by 27.4m. They form a cluster of vertical bins, set out in 16 rows of six, each some 4.2m square with reinforced concrete walls 150mm thick. Unusually for the time, the silos were slip-formed in continuous construction and most of the 36m high walls — from the top of the hoppers to the top of the bins — were completed within 21 days. A floor above the bins carries the feed conveyors, while another floor below the bins has the extraction conveyors.

The size of the bins was selected to suit milling requirements and was the same for each of Faber’s three mills. Individual silo capacity for each mill was achieved by varying the number of bins — Tyne Mill has the most.

Construction took place during the winter and a warming plant heated the concrete constituents before and after mixing, to control the setting time — which governs how soon the slip-form shuttering can be moved to the next lift. The concrete was usually kept at 15.6 deg C, though this could be varied to speed or delay setting times.

The mill building has the actual mill above a warehouse area. Its footprint is 88.4m by 27.4m with 12 storeys and a maximum height of 51.2m. It has reinforced concrete columns and beams, but timber floors of 100mm thick Columbian pine with a 25mm thick maple strip finish. The walls are of 280mm thick brickwork with flashing on each floor to drain the cavity.

When completed, Spillers’ Tyne Mill was the largest flour mill in Europe and apparently the tallest milling building in the world. It could process 254,000 tonnes of grain annually, brought to the mill by ship via Spillers’ Quay or by rail on the track extension along Quayside.

Part of the mill building was demolished in 1987 and replaced by a warehouse.

Source: Engineering Timelines | In attendance: emotive69, Forsaken, Horus & UrbanFox

Standing tall on the Newcastle Quayside are the vacant remains of what was once the largest flour mill in Europe and the tallest milling building in the world. The site has been stripped of cables and has recently suffered minor fire damage due to scrap metal thieves. There's a vast amount of industrial heritage to discover on the inside and a stunning view of Newcastle city centre from the rooftop. The buildings design owes much to the Art Deco movement and boasts the most colourful interior I've seen within an industrial setting. I took the opportunity to visit three times as it's a large site to cover with much to photograph. The first and second visit were with Horus and the third with emotive69 and UrbanFox. Once darkness fell on two of the three visits, we weren't alone on site. On the second visit vandals were tearing apart the ground floor and on the third visit thieves were stripping one of the buildings in the main yard. It's up to you how you deal with this. On with the photographs.


01. An original postcard showing the mill as it was:

02. As it stands today:

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04. Sky bridge linking the two buildings:

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11. Man Lifts:

12. Purifier Floor:

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14. The Sage, Gateshead:

Thanks for looking. More photographs to follow from Horus.

 

[Horus]

Nice report mate, i now understand why it takes you 3 days to take pictures! You can see on the old picture where the building used to be that had the fire damage, those vandals soon shifted when we came plotting down the stairs.

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[AJ]

Nice report, good to see it again, shame i only took one picture i was happy with when i visited it!
is it true there was a large fire somewhere inside?

You may have only been happy with the one photograph, but it's the best photograph I've seen from this location and the lighting is perfect.

As for the fire, Horus is incorrect as that part of the building was demolished in 1987 and replaced by the warehouse you see today. The fire in August 2010 was brought under control within one hour and only caused minor damage to the top three floors of the mill building and much of the metal sheeting protecting the SE side of the building was lost.

1937:

Two photographs of Spillers Wharf in 1972 here.

Part of the mill building was demolished in 1987 and replaced by a warehouse.

December 1989:


© Crown copyright. English Heritage NMR
Reference Number: BB93/20331



January 2011: