Mill news and topical information - Archive page 14

A run through of archives : A - E

EnrichUK.net is a searchable portal linking 150 websites that have been supported with Lottery good causes money distributed by the New Opportunities Fund. Many of them provide access to archives of historical photos and other historical records.

Working through the sites in alphabetical order has given quite a few mill references.

Art and Architecture has a surprisingly poor set of just 18 results for windmill, though the Overturned windmill on Barnes Common after a storm is very interesting
Am Baile has images from the Inverness area, which contains just one windmill image, that of Old windmill at South Kessock, Inverness
Cotton Town covers Blackburn and Darwen and their place in the UK textile industry. Not surprisingly it has thousands of items returned when you search on mill, but a search on windmill gives a more modest 15 entries - including 2 prints of the windmill at Eanam, Blackburn. Unfortunately linking to individual results seems not to work.
Digital Library of Historical Directories has searchable scans of a good set of historical trade directories. A search for windmill turns up almost 500 entries - thats a massive resource indeed (even if some of those do turn out to be just an address in Windmill Road).
Etched on Devon's Memory includes topographical prints of Devon 1660-1870. It has a specific thematic guide page devoted to mills.
Fen Past covering the Cambridgeshire Fens is a bit of a disappointment, since its difficult and confusing to navigate. My initial search for windmill, entered in the search box on the home page returned just one page that happened to mention the word. Searching images is done separately - reached via the image search link. However, a promising 150+ results turned out to be supplied by just 3 documents - notably an accounts book whose many pages all carried the same caption which included the word, so nothing of relevance there. Finally, I found that there was a windmills category supported by the image search, which fetches relevant images - though a rather small set of just 9 images.

Item: #349, Posted: 18/8/04.

Halnaker windmill repairs

Halnaker windmill, now owned by West Sussex County Council, is undergoing £25,000 of repairs to replace rotten wood in the cap, sails and shaft. The mill was built in 1740, and was the flour mill for the Goodwood Estate. After stopping corn milling in 1905 the mill was a landmark for WW2 pilots, and is now an empty shell, but a popular destination for walkers.

Update:[8/11/04] There are a good set of photos of the restoration on the Rough Wood site.
Mills: [Boxgrove]
Item: #348, Posted: 16/8/04.

Michael Roots' Norwich windmills and millwrights

For many years, Michael Roots has been researching the windmills and millwrights of Norwich. The results of that work are now appearing on the Norfolk Mills website. With material on 52 windmills, and 170 millwrights this is obviously going to take some time. The windmills have been added to the existing windmills page in their own Norwich section, and a new page has been created to cover the Norwich millwrights.
Item: #347, Posted: 12/8/04.

New owners at Berkswell windmill embark on restoration

Paul and Jeanette McGarry are the new owners of Berkswell windmill and the adjacent cottage, which they moved in to on 23rd July this year. They have started to restore the windmill once again, following its last large scale restoration in 1971, and will open it to the public when they are ready.

They can be contacted at The Windmill, Windmill Lane, Balsall Common, W Midlands, CV7 7GY, Tel: 01676 530085.
Mills: [Berkswell]
Item: #346, Posted: 11/8/04.

Mills and Millers of Ireland: The Society for the Preservation of Ancient and Traditional Irish Mills

I'm surprised that I didn't come across this before, but I've just found the site for The Society for the Preservation of Ancient and Traditional Irish Mills.

Launched in October 2001, the Society aims to encourage and assist in the preservation of Ireland's old and ancient industrial buildings - Mills. The website is currently compact, but informative, with a couple of very interesting articles extracted from their first couple of newsletters. The news page could do with a bit of updating, since it still refers to the March 2004 event as in the future.
Item: #345, Posted: 10/8/04.

Rough Wood continues its series of Sussex windmills

In the months since I last reported on the Rough Wood site, a number of additional Sussex mills have been photographed and added. As well as being superb photographs, the value of this record is that the photos are all dated and well described, giving an excellent view of the current state of the mills.

The recent additions are:

Argos Hill, March 2004, where the sails consist of just the stocks, and the state of the rest of the mill is giving concern
Shipley, June 2004. Here the mill only has a pair of sails at the moment, but is otherwise in fine shape
Stone Cross, July 2004. The mill is restored and fully functioning, but as always continuing maintenance is perhaps needed - the tower shows some sign of water staining.
Windmill Hill, Herstmonceux, August 2004. This is a very interesting picture, since the windmill is not there at the moment! Rather what is there is a scaffolded structure which was used to dismantle the buck of the mill for restoration. Some pictures of the dismantling can be found on the Trust's November 2003 news page.

Mills: [Mayfield] [Shipley] [Westham] [Herstmonceux]
Item: #344, Posted: 10/8/04.

Sunset photo of Aythorpe Roding, Essex

Ian Terrell posted a nicely composed and well exposed photo of a windmill against a red sky, but couldn't remember whether he was in Essex or Suffolk that day! To set his mind at rest - its of Aythorpe Roding mill, in Essex. Clicking on the small photo takes you to a very large version - you won't have a large enough screen to display it!
Mills: [Aythorpe Roding]
Item: #343, Posted: 10/8/04.

BBC's Restoration Final

The second series of Restoration held its live final on Saturday 8th August. The finalists included both Knockando Woolmill as winner of the Scottish regional heat, and Gayle Mill, North Yorkshire. These properties are both water powered, either by waterwheel, or as at Gayle Mill, by a Williamson turbine which replaced the waterwheel in 1879 and is reputedly the oldest working in situ turbine of its kind.

In the live voting, Gayle Mill came third.
See also:Item #301
Item: #342, Posted: 10/8/04.

Photos at the PhotoSIG site and Foto Natura

It was pointed out to me that there is a free registration at the PhotoSIG site, which does allow you to view the full size images.

The site does not have a search engine at present, but you can use a Google site restricted search as a reasonable alternative.

Certainly worth checking out are the portfolio of Dutch photographer jaaphart/Jaap, and Stevenshof Windmill.

The site also helped me to find Foto Natura which is a Dutch picture agency, with a number of windmill photos. The images are dual captioned in English and Dutch, though you will find more results if you search for windmolen than you do for windmill.

Update:[17/8/04] It's been further pointed out that the keyword categories on the Foto Natura site are not very well done - if you search for "mill" or "molen" then you will get a much higher number of windmill photos.
See also:Item #338
Item: #341, Posted: 9/8/04.

Polkey's Mill new cap frame lifted into place

A new cap frame has been hoisted atop Polkey's Mill at Reedham as Vincent Pargeter's team continue their restoration work under the £750,000 Land of the Windmills project. Its hoped that the cap and sails will be complete by the autumn.

Other nearby buildings also being renovated on the project are Cadge's Mill and the Reedham Steam Engine House; and Ashtree Farm Mill, near Acle will also be restored.
See also:Item #62, Item #212
Item: #340, Posted: 6/8/04.

Melin y Bont combined wind and watermill gets £40,000 grant

The 18th century Melin y Bont windmill, on the Bodorgan estate at Bryn Du near Rhosneigr, has been awarded a £40,000 grant for restoration from the National Assembly. The mill is unique on Anglesey in that it utilized both wind and water power.
Item: #339, Posted: 6/8/04.

Sepia photo of Pitstone Green windmill

This sepia photo of Pitstone Green windmill was captured digitally, and then Photoshopped, first to convert to sepia, then to bring out the detail in the sky. It makes for quite a nice picture - but then again this is one of my favorite mills, and I've seen lots of striking images of it.

Through the comments on the Pitstone picture, I also note that the top ranked photo at the PhotoSIG site is also of a windmill in striking light - that of a Windmill near Schermerhorn. Unfortunately, without being a member, its not possible to see other than a very small version of this latter image.
Mills: [Pitstone Green]
See also:Item #334
Item: #338, Posted: 4/8/04.

Wind Power Trail in full operation

The Wind Power Trail has now entered full operation, with maps readily available. Since first planned, the trail has expanded in scope somewhat, and now includes 18 locations through Texas and Oklahoma. The trail includes both wind engines, and wind turbines.

The maps are double sided - with a simple road map showing all the sites on one side, and a space to collect stamps from each of the sites. The other side gives a few basic facts about American windmills and wind turbines, then gives details of each of the sites, including directions, website, phone number, access info (the majority of the locations have no admission charge), and description. In a tip to modern technology, the map also lists the GPS location of each site.
See also:Item #221
Item: #337, Posted: 4/8/04.

Unidentified mill from the Harris Museum and Art Gallery collection

I've been sent a photo by the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, which they would like to identify. Its from a glass negative taken by the Berkeley-Weld family of Chipping in the early 20th century. It shows a small smock mill on a river bank - by the fantail and cap layout I'd say its a drainage mill on the Norfolk Broads, but I can't identify it more accurately than than. Please take a look, and see if you can identify it.

Update: Now identified as Horning Ferry windpump - much altered, but surviving as a holiday home.
Mills: [Horning Ferry]
Item: #336, Posted: 3/8/04.

Direct links to Mills Archive

The Mills Archive has a increasing number of its archive photos and documents online. The numbers that have appeared on my county pages for a while, alongside each mill entry are index numbers from the Mills Index - the basis of the Mills Archive collection. I have now linked these numbers so that they take you direct to the relevant holdings in the Mills Archive collection. You will have to login to the Archive before these links work.

The Mills Archive includes records for both wind and watermills, but this feature is currently only used on my windmill pages.
See also:Item #322, Item #268, Item #146
Item: #335, Posted: 30/7/04.

Wikipedia entry for windmill

Wikipedia is a collaborative effort to produce an online encyclopedia. Articles are written by whoever cares to write on the subject, and later edited and amended by other readers who find they have something to add to the knowledge.

The windmill page is currently a bit American biased - European mills are covered in just 1 paragraph, compared to the 6 covering wind engines and the like in the USA. However, the article does link to this site for further information!

The entry is also accompanied by a fine photo of Pitstone windmill taken in September 2002.

There are also foreign language versions of the page, of which the French page looks quite informative.
Mills: [Pitstone Green]
Item: #334, Posted: 29/7/04.

Finchingfield windmill features on village interactive CD-ROM

An interactive CD-ROM featuring buildings in Finchingfield village, Essex has been launched by Finchingfield Heritage. The windmill is one of the 18 featured properties, as is the Guildhall, where a Lottery grant will soon enable a permanent computer display to be established.
Mills: [Finchingfield]
Item: #333, Posted: 27/7/04.

Marsh Mill complex sold

Marsh Mill, Thornton, Lancashire has been sold for £1.41M to Melrose Investments who say they will breathe new life into the retail complex.
Mills: [Thornton]
Item: #332, Posted: 27/7/04.

Wind turbines at Ford's Dagenham plant

Ecotricity have recently completed the installation of London's first multi turbine windfarm - consisting of two 85m high Enercon turbines, producing 1.8 MW each at Ford's diesel engine plant.

There are plenty of photos of the construction available.

Item: #331, Posted: 24/7/04.

Cricklepit Mill - Heritage Project of the Year

Cricklepit Mill in Exeter has been named Heritage Project of the Year in the Michelmores and Western Morning News Commercial Property Awards. This is an ongoing project, and Devon Wildlife Trust is in negotiations to buy the site which are expected to be completed very soon.
See also:Item #192
Item: #330, Posted: 20/7/04.

Winds of Change: A Study of Anglesey's Windmills

Cemaes Bay Primary School have won the £1500 prize in the Welsh Heritage Schools Initiative for their study of windmills on Anglesea. There are remains of 31 windmills, whereas once there were 60 working mills at one time in the 19th century.

Pupils studied Anglesey's ruined windmills. They visited the mills and local museums, and made use of a range of resources: a collection of artefacts, census data, trade directories, account books and diaries to create a picture of the community in the past. They presented the findings of their research in posters and other two-dimensional media. The pupils had made an 8-feet high model windmill with powered sails and set up a web-site. Their enthusiasm for the project has been infectious. Their work has been exhibited in two different centres and been the subject of several newspaper articles. They helped to revive an interest in the windmills, which will encourage visits to those that are now being rebuilt.
Item: #329, Posted: 20/7/04.

Cowboy Photographer: Erwin E Smith

The Erwin E Smith Cowboy Photography Collection is a set of photographs documenting the life of the cowboys, taken by Erwin E Smith, one of their number, in the years 1905-1912. Of course, on the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, wind engines (wind pumps) were a quite common sight, though at present a search only gives 5 results. I especially like this picture of horses drinking from the water trough. Note there are other images showing wind pumps that have not been sufficiently well indexed to show up in the search results, such as these of Spur Ranch, Cross-B Ranch, and Three Block Ranch.
Item: #328, Posted: 20/7/04.

Seven Centuries of the English Windmill

Originally published in 1996, Seven Centuries of the English Windmill has recently been re-released in its video form, and also in a straightforward conversion to DVD (containing identical content to the video).

Item: #327, Posted: 12/7/04.

Windmill Walks

I've just come across Windmill Walks, which offer, to quote the site: a series of walking guides featuring circular walks that use a windmill as an excuse, if ever one was needed, to explore some of the magnificent countryside that rural England has to offer.

There is certainly a Kent edition, with 18 walks included, where each walk includes a detailed guide and map, plus a photo and description of the mill. Sussex and Surrey guides appear to be in the process of preparation.
Item: #326, Posted: 10/7/04.

The Trumptonshire Trilogy

The Trumptonshire Trilogy is another fan site about the residents of Trumptonshire, including of course Windy Miller. The creator has put a lot of effort in to the site - in fact I'd say too much effort. Its all written as a Flash application, rather than as normal web pages, which unfortunately means it's much harder to navigate and read the information it contains.
Item: #325, Posted: 8/7/04.

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