When Tony Clark was "knee-high" he remembers sitting beside his father, Warwick Clark, in a Bren gun carrier, shunting wagons packed with 72kg sacks of flour away from Clarks Mill down to the railway line.
Back then, the New Zealand World War 2 armoured tracked carrier had two railway sleepers bolted to the front to serve as a bumper. It would push up to four wagons a day to the railway line that took the mill’s flour to market.
Mr Clark and his sister, Sonia Dodd, took the vehicle for a spin around the grounds at the Clark Mill’s 150th celebrations at the weekend for old time’s sake. Rather than mucking around in paddocks in World War 2 machinery, their father, Warwick, who grew up in the miller’s house at the historic property, said his most vivid memories of his youth at the mill were the floods. Once powered by the nearby Kakanui River, the mill was regularly inundated. Mr Clark said the wallpaper in the historic home kept a record of the water damage that used to plague the family business.
Built in 1866, the mill started producing flour by 1867. Heritage New Zealand property manager Anne Sutherland said hundreds arrived at the weekend to view the four-storey mill working on Saturday. Bought by three Clark brothers from the New Zealand and Australian Land Company in 1901 the mill was operated by descendants before being purchased and closed in 1976 by Northern Roller Mills.
Heritage New Zealand bought the mill in 1977. North Otago was once an important wheat producing area and 13 mills operated in the area.
Clarks Mill was restored by Clarks Mill Restorers, a six-member volunteer group that meets weekly to maintain North Otago’s only publicly accessible historic flour mill.
A demonstration pop-up bakery made treats for visitors in the miller’s house and the North Otago Vintage Machinery Club gave demonstrations of working vintage machinery over the weekend.
