Daily archives: September 5, 2025

This is an expanded version of an article first published in the Society’s newsletter ‘The Twitchell’. All the old pictures are the copyright of Steve Mills. Mills Dockyard is probably the oldest family business in Sawley. Established around 1895 at a yard on the Erewash Canal, about 400 yards upstream from Trent Lock, four generations of the Mills family have been building and servicing inland waterways craft. (Arthur) Amos Mills (1870-1942) started the business in the 1890s.  He’d been born in East Leake and initially followed his father in the basketmaking trade and also been a toll collector at Ratcliffe on Soar, before moving to Sawley.  The business ran two narrow boats and a horse, carrying plaster from Thrumpton to the Sheet Stores for transshipment to railway wagons. This trade ended about 1924. Amos also used the yard for boatbuilding, converting e.g. Trent barges to houseboats, and building (in the loft during the winter months) rowing skiffs. This picture, from before 1900, shows two workmen at the yard. The one on the right holds a smoothing tool called an adze. The corrugated sheets were when the men had to lie down on the ground After the second world war Amos’s […]