Left: 1887 Mill in celebratory mood Right: 2022 Jubilee Celebration

By Stephen Waite

In the week leading up to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend celebrations, Oldland Mill Trust volunteers worked enthusiastically to ‘dress’ Oldland Mill, recreating the spectacle of the Mill dressed for the 1887 celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

If you look carefully at the two pictures, past and present, you will notice a number of differences. In 1887 the site of the Mill was devoid of trees, making the mill much easier to operate back then, than it would be now. Modes of transport and costumes also differ. Amongst the people gathered at the Mill in 1887, in addition to the local dignitaries, would have been Jesse Washington White, the miller. Jesse started working at the Mill around 1869, and organised the celebration at the Mill for the 20th June 1887, providing bunting and the large Union Flag affixed to the top of the Mill. Jesse live at the Mill House and died, aged 50, in 1891.