The grain arrives at the mill and is checked for its quality and provenance. All the English grain can be traced back to the farms where it was grown.

The first step at the mill is to make sure the grain is pure; a combine harvester can collect other seeds, small stones and straw from the fields.  At the mill we pass the grain over special sieves and blow air through it to lift the straw away to leave only pure grain for [...]

We then moisten the grain with water and leave the grain to stand for between 8 and 12 hours (depending on how hard the grain is). The water comes from the mill’s own borehole 30 metres (100ft) below ground drawing water from the Cheshire acquifer.

Once moistened the grain then passes through a set of stones which take the very outer layers of bran from the grain.  The grain is then broken open through a set of ‘break’ roller mills which release the inner parts of the grain.

All parts of the grain then get sieved into different sizes. Any large parts of grain which need further breaking are sent to another ‘break’ mill. Any smaller granular parts are ground down to flour.  These parts are then all sieved again and this is repeated until a fine flour is produced. [...]

The final flour is checked to make sure it meets the highest quality standards.  Our resident baker at the mill bakes sourdough, all different bread types, cakes, pizzas, biscuits and everything else you can think of in our bakery to check the flour works well in all your recipes, and is worthy of being [...]