Shropshire Star

Visitor centre opens at Shrewsbury's historic Flax Mill

A state-of-the-art visitor centre has officially opened at Shrewsbury's historic Flax Mill thanks to a £2.3 million grant to help build it.

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The new centre at the site includes a reception, interpretation displays, film and audio material and learning resources, allowing members of the public to learn about the building's architectural and social history.

Visitors will also be able to explore the grounds of the main mill, workshops and maltings buildings.

"This last month has been super-busy as we approached our opening date," said Richard Benjamin, administrator and support officer for the Friends of the Flaxmill Maltings group, which is staffing the visitor centre.

He added: "Even last week things were still very much under construction in the visitor centre and we still needed to get all the information boards up around the site and things.

"But the builders have put in some late nights this week and we're ready for members of the public to come down and explore the history of this fascinating piece of architecture."

Built in 1797, the mill was the world's first iron-framed building and is known as the "grandfather of skyscrapers".

The site has stood empty since the Ansells malting operation closed in 1987, but was purchased by Historic England in 2005 with a view to bringing the building back into use, and it's hoped the development work will provide a platform for the further redevelopment of the site.

About 70 people attended a pre-launch event on Tuesday, including representatives from Historic England, members of the Flax Mill's friends group and some former employees at the Ansells site.

But organisers admit they're not sure how popular the attraction will be with the general public until the turnstiles start clicking.

"This is our first morning open, we don't know whether we'll have 80 people through the door each day or two," said Frank Oldaker, a volunteer with the group responsible for showing visitors around the site.

"All the feedback we've had from the public has been really positive so far. There's still quite a lot to do because the building's just been handed over, but the pre-launch was a chance for us to pat ourselves on the back a bit really, in many ways the hard work starts now.

"Obviously the more people that come and visit, the easier it is for us to make a case for us to access further grant funding," he added.

The new visitor centre is free to visit and will be open from 10am to 3pm every day until December 1, after which it will be open on Saturdays only until early 2016. The timeline for further redevelopment work remains in the balance as owners English Heritage work on attracting funding for the revamp.

The Flax Mill project was awarded grants of £19.4m in 2013, but delays in the work meant there were issues accessing some of the money.

The visitor centre refurbishment has been paid for by Historic England and grants from the European Regional Development Fund.

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