Miller Bakehouse Museum Building

The Miller Bakehouse Museum's history - home of the Melville History Society

Restored in 1988 by the City of Melville as a bi-centennial project, the Bakehouse building provides a meeting place for small community groups; headquarters for the Melville History Society and a small industry based museum built around the retained baker's Cleveland Moulder oven. There are few ovens of this type still in existence. By preserving this one, future generations will be able to see how bakers worked before the age of high technology.

We invite you to visit the museum in Palmyra during open hours or by appointment.

The Building

The bakehouse was built in 1935 for Mr. H.T. Miller, by Mr. H.M. Gorse a building contractor of McKimmie Street, Palmyra. Initially it had been intended that the verandah should be unobstructed, to allow free access for the delivery carts. However, pillars had to be added to support the length of the overhang. The brickwork of the bakery was done by a team of bricklayers, Millington and Sons, and the contract price for the completed building was 720 pounds.

The bakehouse consisted of three rooms:

The Store Room

In which the flour, other ingredients, bowls, and other equipment were stored.

The Oven Room

This is where the dough was mixed and baked. The floor is jarrah boarding and under the trough is an original section of timber. Although concrete floors were a standard health requirement, Mr. Miller said he wasn't having his workers standing about on concrete all day. Somehow he won his argument! The Cleveland Moulder oven was constructed by a baker's oven expert, Mr. V.M. Shields of Nedlands. It is a semi-scotch wood-fired peel oven of a design used since the middle to late 19th Century. Built on the cantilever principle, the rood is self-supporting, allowing access to all parts of the over for the peels, used to position and remove bread tins. The weight of sand and slurry above the firebrick roof keeps the bricks in place. To keep the walls of the oven from falling outwards, large channel iron sections are through-bolted to give support.

The Bread Room

This is where the bread was placed on racks to cool after baking. Holes, which can be seen in the ceiling, were cut to let the heat from the bread escape instead of condensing and dripping back on the loaves.