Mill news and topical information - Archive page 17

Flight Simulator scenery featuring Sussex windmills

Tony Pick's 3D Sussex is a series of free addon scenery models for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004. The series started with Jack and Jill windmills, Clayton, and has grown to include Chailey windmill.

The Sussex mills website has more info on the series, including a selection of images showing the mills as they appear as you fly around them.
Mills: [Clayton] [Clayton] [Chailey]
Item: #424, Posted: 26/1/05.

Dolphin Inn, Chatham, Cape Code - development plans

The town of Chatham, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts is home to a fine complete windmill, a second house converted mill at Sur Mer, and a "faux" windmill at The Dolphin Inn where it serves as the Honeymoon suite.

Plans have been proposed to develop the Dolphin Inn site into 11 family homes. These plans include moving the historic inn about 15 feet, and demolition of many of the subsidiary buildings, including the "faux" windmill (which only dates from the 1980's, but has been a very visible part of the site since that time). The local historic business district commission are watching the plans carefully, and are investigating the historical background of the property.
Item: #423, Posted: 26/1/05.

Photo of Bidston windmill

There is a recent picture of Bidston windmill, together with some discussion as to the stories that accompany this mill. The photographer has another photo gallery which also includes a pictures of other mills.
Mills: [Bidston Hill]
Item: #422, Posted: 24/1/05.

Millers Grove wines

I'm always on the lookout for food and drink products showing mills, and pleased to be informed of such items when others come across them. A friend informs me of Miller's Grove Merlot which features an Australian wind engine on the label. Unfortunately, when I checked, their site was showing that they were sold out of this product, but if Virgin Wines happen to have a case in reserve to send me, then I'd be more than happy to check it out and review the wine, much as I post reviews of milling books on another part of my site!

Item: #421, Posted: 17/1/05.

Sweet secrets of Barbados

The Times travel section of 15th Jan carried an article entitled "Sweet secrets of Barbados" which rather than concentrating on the typical beach holiday experience there, considers the enormous heritage that sugar cane has left on the island. This heritage includes the magnificently restored windmill at Morgan Lewis, which the article covers. Unfortunately the article has been edited from what the author originally submitted, in such a way that it now reads as if Morgan Lewis is the only remaining windmill on the island, rather than being the only remaining restored and working windmill. There are in fact many remaining windmills on the island, as my Windmills of Barbados survey shows (though I recently covered news of the destruction of one of the mills given in my survey).
See also:Item #412
Item: #420, Posted: 16/1/05.

Shipley sails fully shuttered

Shipley windmill reports that following the replacement of a 42ft long stock, and two sweeps in Sept 2004, additional repairs have been made to the other pair of sweeps, and the full complement of 276 shutters are now in place.

Open days for 2005 are the first, second and third Sundays in each month, from Easter to the end of October, plus Bank Holiday Mondays. Opening hours are 2.00pm to 5.00 pm. The mill will be working whenever the availability of volunteers and the wind permits. The windmill will thus re-open on Easter Sunday and Monday, 27th-28th March 2005.
Mills: [Shipley]
Item: #419, Posted: 9/1/05.

Somerset windmill stock photos

Tony Howell is a Somerset based photographer. His website has some recently added photos of Ashton windmill, and some other photos of Stembridge windmill and here.
Mills: [Chapel Allerton] [High Ham]
Item: #418, Posted: 9/1/05.

Talk on the "Windmills of Hull"

On Tuesday 11 January 2005 Geoff Percival is giving a talk on "The Windmills of Hull" for the Family & Local History Lunchtime Club, at Hull Screen, Central Library, Albion Street Hull 12.30pm-1.30pm. Admission free. Tel 01482 616828.
Item: #417, Posted: 9/1/05.

Cockermouth windmill planning application refused

I have no further details, but note from News & Star that in the Planning applications for Allerdale/Copeland (published 07/01/2005), Listed Building Consent to re-build the former windmill, Brewery Lane, Cockermouth to provide domestic accommodation, has been refused.

This seems to be the same application that in Oct 2004 was reported thus:

Plans to turn a ruined windmill in Brewery Lane into a house received approval from Cockermouth Town Council. "It will be an improvement", Coun Derwent Newton said of Lakeland Building Design's proposal.
Mills: [Cockermouth]
Item: #416, Posted: 8/1/05.

Sussex windmills near Findon - past and present

Valerie Martin has long provided the results of her exhaustive search for details about the vanished Findon windmill on her Findon Village website.

She has now extended her coverage to include a good number of other local windmills, including both vanished and surviving mills.
Item: #415, Posted: 8/1/05.

The joys of working from home

The Times property pages for 7th Jan had an article about the estimated 650,000 people in Britain who work from home. The final paragraph relates to Mark Cross windmill, which is for sale, and includes a home office:

Commutes don't get much shorter than the few steps from the front door of this converted windmill in Mark Cross, Crowborough, East Sussex, to the outhouse, which has been turned into a home office and a garage. This is no barn with a dusty desk in the corner: the office is double-glazed, has a proper security door and electricity. The main house isn't bad either, with five bedrooms, two bathrooms and three reception rooms. Climb up to the fifth floor for great views over the surrounding fields and woodland. Should you need to trek up to the City, trains from Crowborough take you to London Bridge in just over an hour. Contact: Humberts, 01892 782424, www.humberts.co.uk
Mills: [Mark Cross]
Item: #414, Posted: 8/1/05.

Thaxted windmill back in action once again

Thaxted windmill has been restored to working order once again, following extensive (and expensive) repairs to the top of the tower which began to crumble a few years ago. Since New Years Day this year fell at a weekend, the Bank Holiday shifted to Monday 3rd, and as it was a bright sunny day, with a good breeze, the volunteer operators of Thaxted mill took the opportunity to open the mill, and get it turning in the wind. A good number of people were attracted to the spectacle that the locals have missed whilst repairs have been underway.

The "official" reopening of the mill is due to take place later in the year, around May time, when the museum of country bygones will have been reinstated in the lower floors of the mill.
Mills: [Thaxted]
See also:Item #299
Item: #413, Posted: 4/1/05.

Millwall demolished at Grantley Adams Airport, Barbados

A correspondent in Barbados has reported to me that

"The the millwall at Grantly Adams, that was on the south side of the airfield near the flying club, was destroyed in March 2004, and probably without any thought to its significance.
It was knocked down to make room for a part of the RSS, The Regional Security System. This is a co-operative security service for most of the eastern Caribbean, and includes the Barbados Defense Force base adjacent to the airport. They were building a permanent hanger for aircraft storage to replace the temporary tent that has been in place for some time. The US is providing much assistance and support and material for the construction and operation as no doubt they have a large interest in the RSS."

Let's hope that Concorde G-BOAE which has been retired to this airport, is being looked after with a bit more care.

Item: #412, Posted: 4/1/05.

Welcome back Tío Kinke

For many years, the most comprehensive set of web links to sites about windmills was to be found at La Biblioteca del Tío Kinke - a Spanish langauage site which also had some significant pages of its own contents, pricipally about windmills in La Manga, and windmills appearing on stamps. The site was regularly updated, once a month.

However, when I last checked the site, there had been just one update to it in 2004 - and that was on the first of January! However, I'm very happy to see that the site is active again, and that there have been two updates in the past couple of months - one a general one of well over a hundred links, and a second one providing a very detailed catalogue of maps and city views with windmills in the "Frederick Den V's Atlas", København, Det Kongelige Bibliotek.
Item: #411, Posted: 23/12/04.

Website for Oldland Windmill, Sussex

There is a newly set up website for Oldland windmill, Keymer, Sussex. The site currently has a brief history of the mill, together with a diary of the last two years of restoration works, and a photo gallery covering the past 20. The diary carries the latest news, which is that the mill has obtained a £62,000 grant from DEFRA, which will enable the sails to be replaced, together with a number of other restoration tasks over the next 18 months.
Mills: [Keymer]
Item: #410, Posted: 22/12/04.

Windmill videos on the web

Yahoo have introduced a video search tool.

The results of a search for "windmill" are dominated by videos of breakdancing and basketball, but there are a few more interesting results buried in amongst them. Probably not worth checking this out unless you have a broadband connection!

See also:Item #217, Item #28
Item: #409, Posted: 16/12/04.

William Jerrems Silver Token from Gainsborough

My mills on currency page has long had a listing of the "1811 shilling issued by William Jerrems in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire carrying an image of a ship and a windmill", but I had no other information on this token. Thanks to Ian Rousell, who has an example of this coin passed to him by his father, I now have a illustration of the token. Ian believes his ancesters may have been associated with this or another mill - can anyone provide any more information on William Jerrems or his mill?

Item: #408, Posted: 9/12/04.

Bosnian mill brought back to life with UNHCR help

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have been working in Bosnia, and through their negotiation and part funding, a watermill, in the village of Malesici, 30 km north of Sarajevo, has been repaired, and returned to work after a war ravaged 10 years of inactivity.

(Same information is available via a Reuters distribution channel).
Item: #407, Posted: 9/12/04.

History of the Fullers Earth works at Folly Down, Fosseway, Bath

As part of a proposed development of the Fullers Earth works at Folly Down, Fosseway, Bath, the architects of the scheme have put together an accompanying website. In their words, the scheme is for "A mixed development of offices and dwellings in a beautiful rural setting combining exquisitely converted former mill buildings with contemporary additions in sympathetic character".

The page on the history of the site includes information on the 60ft diameter Halliday windengine which was used to power the machinery in the 1890's. The engine which had a wooden sectional windwheel burnt down in 1904.

The original planning proposal from Nov 2000 was rejected, but the developers are still looking to develop the site, as witnessed by a further application in 2004 to update the security on the site (granted).
Item: #406, Posted: 9/12/04.

Michael Roots' top ten list of windmills

Following on from my own top ten list of windmills, Michael Roots has written to me with his top ten windmills. There's but one mill that overlaps with my list, which just goes to show that there are plenty of fine mills to choose from.
Item: #405, Posted: 17/11/04.

Image * After photos of windmills

The Image * After site is basically the output of three Dutch individuals who are uploading all their high resolution images from their SLR digital cameras to the site. They offer the images for free private or commercial use - that's a very generous thing to do, and given the size of the images must be costing them quite a bit of real cash paying for the bandwidth used. The site is in English, though the owners are Dutch.

Its possible to search the images, which seems to be searching some keywords that have been assigned to each image (you can see the list as a tooltip as you hover the mouse over the image). Other than these keywords, the images have no description, which is frustrating.

Searches for windmill give images from the Netherlands, Mallorca and Malta, and for mill a few more images appear. The ratio of wind turbines in these results is quite low.
Item: #404, Posted: 16/11/04.

Windsave Plug'n'Save consumer wind turbine

Windsave are preparing to enter volume production of their Plug'n'Save consumer wind turbine. The product works to feed power directly into the household electricity supply, displacing the need to take power from the grid. By dispensing with the need to store power, the product is much cheaper since it avoids the need for expensive battery storage.

An early production system has been installed at the Glasgow home of former energy minister Brian Wilson.
Item: #403, Posted: 15/11/04.

Rayleigh windmill to share in Thames Gateway money

Rayleigh windmill is to receive £340,000 from the Thames Gateway regeneration project.
Mills: [Rayleigh]
Item: #402, Posted: 13/11/04.

Preserving Turnells Mill, Wellingborough

Alongside the River Nene in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire are the overgrown remains of Turnells Mill - originally built in 1874 by the Whitworth Brothers, and operated by George Turnell. The Whitworth company opened their Victoria Steam Mills nearby in 1886, and continue to produce flour from the same premises. The watermill meanwhile continued to operate for a number of decades in the 20th century. It did eventually go out of use, and after becoming derelict, in 1975 it was set alight by vandals, and the building demolished soon afterwards.

The site, alongside the A45 sliproad is still owned by Whitworths, and although the building has gone, there are still substantial parts of the milling machinery remaining on the site, including the waterwheel itself. Local people, including Trevor Stainwright (author of the definitive book on Windmills of Northamptonshire), and the Croyland Community Association are looking to uncover the remains, and make them a feature to be enjoyed by the site's visitors. Plans include clearing the undergrowth, fencing the area, and providing shelter and repairs to the machinery. Trevor has done much research on the mill, uncovering a lot of old photographs of it, and such research will be used to produce an information board about the mill.

Although at an early stage, the plans have the initial support of Wellingborough Council, and there is talk of putting in a Lottery application. The local paper has covered the project, and those wishing to add their support can contact the reporter stephanie.weaver@northantsnews.co.uk.
Item: #401, Posted: 9/11/04.

Windmills At Work In East Sussex

Windmills At Work In East Sussex is a new book compiled by Brigid Chapman from the research material of Maurice Lawson Finch. It includes both historical and current photos of the mills, and related stories, covering the sites in alphabetical order.
Item: #400, Posted: 8/11/04.

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Last updated 19th March 2008