Plan your visit soon

The Garden is an (educational) family-fun place to visit.

Features include:
an 1877 Waterwheel powered, all wood construction, flour mill, with orginal equipment, the last in BC, an 1879 White House with exhibits, a turn of the 20th century Apple House, our heritage orchard, a kitchen garden, and the Victorian Gardens beside the stream. Children can play on the mill lawn, roll down the hill beside the Victorian gardens or play other games while parents enjoy a cup of tea or lemonade, in the shade, by the stream or see the waterwheel in action.

The 12 acre site also features the Tearoom for light lunchs and afternoon tea, the Giftshop with a quality selection of locally made arts, crafts, and gifts, and a Campground for both RV’s and tents.

The gardens has flowers that have something blooming all season

However, Jim’s favourite are the 3 different shades of lilacs that are spectacular in late May.

Lilacs

Fruits & Veggie

Wheat

The Gardens and Grounds

The Victorian Gardens are in the shade of the large Cottonwoods.

A kitchen garden by the White House provides fresh veggies for the Tearoom.
In the Upper Field we have over 20 varieties of heritage apples.

There we also grow wheat (Red Fife last year) and a variety of others as time permits – corn, tomatoes, peas, and giant sunflowers.

Quite a variety of birds and butterflies enjoy the garden as well!

Many people would like to learn basic gardening and food preservation skills,
hundred mile diet,
and others would like the skills necessary to survive a serious storm or small earthquake.
Could you live in relative comfort for 2 or 3 weeks without electricity?
We are preparing training courses to provide these skills.
If you are interested, please let us know.
Would you like a class on grinding wheat and baking bread in a wood-fired stove?

“Heritage or Prepper Skills Training?”

History

Barrington Price began working for the Hudson Bay Company in 1872. In 1877, he built a water powered Grist Mill to produce a high quality white flour from First Nations wheat so he could make money (and his fame and fortune) from the prospectors that were scouring the local mountains in search for gold. Unfortunatley, the gold rush did not last long. By 1895 the Mill no longer ground wheat into flour. In the early 1900’s the village of Keremeos moved to the banks of the Similkameen River and the new railway line. This, along with the dry conditions of the Similkameen valley, helped preserve the Mill for us today as it was left alone, save a stint as a chicken coop in the 1940’s.
The Mill’s heritage value was recognized in 1965 with plaque and in 1984 was purchased by the Province of BC. With much hard work it was lovingly restored, as well as the White House, and the 1900’s Apple House.
Apples, the fruit of choice at the time, came to the Valley with development of irrigation about 1900.
In 1994, a Tearoom was added to the site to provide more ammenities and a campground was also added in 2004. In 2003 the Province devolved the site along with 9 other Heritage Properties.
Jim and Brenda Millar have been operating the site since 2009 for the BC Heritage Branch.

SPECIAL EVENTS

The gardens are available for Your Special Event
whatever it may be.
Also The Mill is host to a few Special Events of our own
Applefest, every fall when apples are at their best.

THE GIFT SHOP

Features many local items and great gift ideas. We have a neat walking stick that comes apart for storage/travelling and also doubles as a camera stand.
We also have homemade jams. Saskatoon berry jam is great! Kids, young and old, like our olde fashioned candies.
We have had some mechanical problems with our grinder but soon hope to have one in operation and return to selling fresh ground organic whole wheat flour.