Husborne Crawley windmill, Bedfordshire 🌍

Husborne Crawley #13504

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Horizontal windmill function:Clay mill

A horizontal windmill was experimentally used to power the pug mill at the Duke of Bedford's estate brick kiln in the 1820s. When it became beyond repair by 1830 a replacement watermill was considered, but it was replaced by a conventional windmill in 1831. (Info from A. Cox, Brickmaking: A History and Gazetteer, (Survey of Bedfordshire), Bedford: Bedfordshire County Council and Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments (England), 1979, illustration no. 10 on p.20 and p.23.)

Painting by Thomas Fisher, c1835

Statesman, 31 March 1815

HUSBORNE-CRAWLEY, MARCH 29 .- On Thursday morning last the weather was excessively stormy here, the wind, at one time, was so extremely high, that the neighbourhood were mach alarmed, expecting every minute some disaster might ensue; nothing however of any consequence happened till about 11 o'clock, when there came a sudden gust of wind which carried the top of a new horizontal windmill (which has lately been erected at the brick-kilo at Husborne-Crawley, belonging to his Grace the Duke of Bedford) completely away, with the four sails thereto attached; breaking the main shaft in the middle, and hurling the same from the top of the large circular building, into the clay-pit below. Luckily, however, no lives were lost, there being no person near the spot at the time the incident happened.

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Entry in Mills Archive database - #13504 - Windmill, Husborne Crawley (has photos)

Mill was constructed c. 1800, and operated until 1840, when it was probably demolished. This mill was the earliest known use of wind power being used to drive a pug mill (as a replacement for the horse).