Windmill and Watermill Organisations 🌍

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings - Mills Section

The SPAB Mills Section is the national windmill and watermill organization in the UK, and was formed in 1931. Its website includes all you need to know about its aims and objectives, together with information on how to join. The Mills Section is just one part of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings - commonly abbreviated to SPAB.

Although the Mills Section does not specifically aim to own any mills, the main Society (SPAB itself) is involved in the ownership of Kibworth Harcourt post mill, in Leicestershire.

Each year, the Mills Section organises National Mills Weekend during the second weekend in May, when a large number of mills are opened to the public.

For many years the organisation was styled as the Wind and Watermill Section.

Mills Open

The Mills Section's premier publication was called Mills Open, detailing mills that could be visited. This was first produced as a map, then subsequent versions were in book form, ending with the 8th edition in 2007. In more recent times it became uneconomic to publish this as a printed book, so the information was made available via the web.

4th Edition - Cover photo The waterwheel, Painshill Park, Cobham, Surrey.

5th Edition - Cover photo Shipley Windmill, West Sussex, by Jim Woodward-Nutt.

6th Edition - Cover photo Outwood Windmill, Surrey, by Peter Wright

7th Edition - Cover photo Great Bircham, Norfolk, by Mildred Cookson

8th Edition - Cover photo Tuxford, Nottinghamshire, by Bob Paterson

Mill News

Amongst its other publications, the Mills Section produces a quarterly magazine for members, now titled Mill News

Whilst it is hugely out of date now, UK Windmills on the World Wide Web was an article which appeared in the April 1998 issue.

• The Traditional Cornmillers Guild
• Mills Archive
• Hampshire Mills group is closely linked with Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society (formerly the Southampton University Industrial Archaeology Group (S.U.I.A.G.)).
• Midland Wind and Water Mills Group
• Norfolk Windmills Trust maintains 20 corn and pumping windmills in Norfolk.
• Suffolk Mills Group is a voluntary association for those helping to care for Suffolk's Heritage of old wind and water mills. (See also a local page I used to maintain for the Group).
• Sussex Mills Group
• The East Anglia Mills Society (TEAMS)
• Welsh Mills Society aims are to study, record, interpret and publicise the wind and water mills of Wales; to encourage general interest; to advise on their preservation and use, and to encourage working millers.

Former groups

• The Mills Research Group which researched traditional forms of milling (wind, water and muscle power). Amongst their publications was the comprehensive Windmill Gazetteer for England.
• Essex Mills Group
• Kent Mills Group
• Kent Mills Society - newly formed in Nov 2009 but unfortunately folded in 2012 after the death of the chairman Geoff Holman.
• Lincolnshire Mills group - wound up in Oct 2016,
• Norfolk Mills Group - disbanded about 2006
• North East Mills Group
• North West Mills Group includes a number of wind and water mills in (primarily) Cumbria, Lancashire, and Cheshire. Website no longer updated.
• Wessex Mills Group covers Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.

The International Molinological Society - TIMS

The main TIMS site is regularly updated.

French Associations

• Moulins Du Quercy

Also known as SPOOM, this is an American based organization.

Dutch Mills associations

• De Hollandsche Molen - The Netherlands.
• Association of friends of the windmills of Groningen - The Netherlands

Other related organisations

• The National Trust who own a number of mills.
• The Newcomen Society - for the history of all engineering and technological disciplines from antiquity to the present day.
• The Society for Industrial Archeology
• English Heritage
• Images of England - a Millennium project to capture an image of every listed building in England.
• The Surrey Archaeological Society
• Historic Buildings and Places