In danger of being demolished with its timbers sold off and the land marketed as building plots, Peggy Pollard, alias Bill Stickers, and Brynhild Catherine Jervis-Read, alias Sister Agatha, of Ferguson's Gang, persuaded the Godwin-Austen trust to donate the watermill to the National Trust on the understanding that the Gang would raise the money for its repair and future running costs. The repair was supervised by the conservation architect John Eric Miers Macgregor OBE who went on to become an important member of Ferguson's Gang and was given the pseudonym "The Artichoke". He and his family used Shalford Mill as a weekend retreat and his daughter Joanna Bagnall is the current tenant. The titular head of the Godwin Austen Estate, Major Arthur Godwin-Austen was admitted to the Gang and given the pseudonym of "The Pious Yudhishthira". From 1932 until 1966 Ferguson's Gang had its headquarters at Shalford Mill.