City Flour Mills, Gloucester

Image: © Rudi Winter Taken: 16 Mar 2019

Located at the northern end of Gloucester Docks (and on Commercial Road), the City Flour Mills were built in 1850 as a corn mill. Originally, it was a steam operated stone mill but was converted to use steel rollers in 1883. From 1921 the mill was driven electrically. The mill was closed in 1994, and the building has since been turned into apartments. The mill has a significance in legal history because of a claim for lost profits the mill owners made against a transport company charged with carrying a crank shaft of a steam engine for repairs, which took longer than contractually agreed. In the judgement Hadley vs. Baxendale it was determined that a party in breach of contract was only liable for foreseeable losses which either "arise naturally" from the breach or "would have been in the contemplation of both parties, at the time they made the contract". In this case that meant that the carrier wasn't liable because the contract didn't mention that a delay would have caused the mill owner a loss. I suspect this judgement may well be what lets airlines off the hook when their delays cause people to miss connecting trains.

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