Kingbur Mill makes its Mark

Kingbur Mill makes its mark

Thank you to everyone who joined us as we threw open the mill's main doors for the first time since our open day last summer.  We were so excited to be a part of the legendary Audlem Music and Arts Festival as its new venue for 2026 over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend.

The Makers' Market inside the mill proved as popular as we hoped it would be, and really showcased the mill as a vision of what it could be in the future.  Huge thanks to the inimitable Harriet Slack (supported by the equally brilliant Jody and the rest of the festival team – of course!) for curating and event-managing a fantastic selection of vendors from the local area, including locally-roasted coffee, locally-made honey and beeswax products, cider from down the road in Hatherton, Nantwich gin, incredible pencil art (I couldn't resist buying a selection of comedy show coasters) and too many other great stalls to name individually.

So what's next?

Over the last few months, whilst preparing the flat on the top floor as an Airbnb (which is now running really well, with some lovely guest reviews!), I've also had several exploratory conversations with local businesses.  The purpose for the conversations has been two-fold: to test out the viability of bringing the mill back to life again as a commercial space (including whether there was interest from existing local businesses to have a foothold in it) and to make sure that whatever we do is complementary to the businesses that already exist in Audlem.

After our open day last July, some of these conversations continued but it became clear that we needed help to find a tenant or tenants.  It's a large space, and we feel it would lend itself really well to the “cafe/bakery + artisan emporium” that so many of you told us you'd like to see there.  If you happen to stroll by the mill now, you'll see I've put the feedback we had up in the windows so you can see what everyone said they'd like to see in it.  As I was putting it up, I heard someone walking past rather shocked that “they're putting a pub on the roof!!!”.  Whilst this was indeed a suggestion, Dale, Dave and Colin can all rest assured that this won't be happening.... at least not until we've put up a zip wire, so that everyone can travel smoothly down to Shroppie or Bridge (joke!).

Our “To Let” sign is now up, with a single price for both commercial floors and we're not planning to partition the floor space, as its charm rests in exploring it as an open space.  Whilst it's not viable for the letting agency to break it down into smaller artisan units, they are aware that we are flexible in how we approach everything once we have our “main tenant” and would be keen to realise its potential as an emporium -type venue if we can.  Once we've got confidence that there is some money coming in, we can also invest more back into the building.  Iain Findlay has started us on that journey as our “resident handyman” – with some internal repairs and a beautifully restored door for our Airbnb guests to enter from the canal-side.

And to close off, additional mention is warranted for the rest of “team Kingbur”: Alex, my fantastic Airbnb co-host (who runs the show smoothly for our guests), Joanna and her incredible team of cleaners (their attention to detail and loo-paper artwork are great!), my dad (Geoff Seddon) for lawn-mowing and general help and my aunty (Stephanie Richardson) for weeding, Audlem Online article support and great ideas.   Lastly, thank you to everyone in the village, the marina and on the boats for all of your support so far – it is very much appreciated.

Di (and family)

Kingbur Mill