This talk examines the new ideas and technology some of the various leading figures in the story of Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings developed or adopted and the milieu from which they sprang.

Penny Ward studied Archaeology at Cardiff graduating in 1975 and completing a research MA in 1978. After working as an archaeologist in Northamptonshire and then for the Dyfed Archaeological Trust, she came to Shrewsbury in 1982 to work for Shropshire County Council, managing and developing the Shropshire Sites and Monuments Record (SMR). Over the subsequent decades, Penny computerised the SMR, added GIS (computer mapping), ensured it covered historic buildings as well as archaeological sites and features and undertook a series of initiatives to make the SMR available online. By the time she retired in 2016, the SMR had become a wide-ranging Historic Environment Record (HER).

Having lived within one hundred yards of the Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings since 1984, Penny volunteered to help with Open Days there when English Heritage (now Historic England) took over the site in 2005 and was a founding member of the Board of the Friends of the Flaxmill Maltings when they were formed in 2010. In 2012 she organised a research project on the People of the Flax Mill which continues to this day.