Many people know that Janet Prescott has been very instrumental in the restoration of Moulton Mill.
Fewer people know that she is or has been involved in all kinds of other restoration projects in the county, and now shares her expertise with other groups embarking on work to historic buildings.
Consequently Janet, whose husband Paul Bellamy is head miller and duty manager at Moulton, received her BEM (British Empire Medal) for services to Moulton Mill and to heritage in Lincolnshire.
Janet became involved in the Moulton scheme at the first public meeting in 1998. From secretary she swiftly became project and mill manager, able to transfer a lot of skills from her day job as manufacturing manager at Bakkavor – business planning and strategy, managing people, managing a project and delivering it on time and to budget.
Since then she has become project manager at Crowland Abbey and been involved in restoration projects at Whaplode and at Holbeach.
Janet says: “The difficulty with anything that involves restoration, especially when we started off, is that there isn’t a guide to restoring a building and it’s difficult to know how to start that process. People will ask me how we started and what we recommend and I will help people if they have a business plan to write.
“We can share some of our experience with groups, the things we have done wrong, because we didn’t always get it right, and sometimes that slows you down.
“Sometimes it’s about having the right questions to ask, asking them in the right format and the right person, so and it just helps to take away some of that pain.”
Janet has also spoken at the national conference for the UK Association of Preservation Trusts on her experiences of engaging with community groups.
Janet found the award “a shocking and humbling experience that people felt you had such an impact on what they were trying to do.”
The mill is currently looking for more volunteers.