Mill news and topical information - Archive page 20

PastScape from English Heritage

PastScape from English Heritage is a searchable resource of the nearly 400,000 records on the archaeology and buildings of England and its territorial waters collected by the National Monuments Record (NMR).

It's got some historic photos there, but records on Listed Buildings have also been illustrated with images from the Images of England project. A search for windmill returns over 1000 records - ranging from the existing, through to "site of windmill - identified from cropmarks".
Item: #499, Posted: 25/8/05.

Les Moulins a Vent en France

Les Moulins a Vent en France looks to be a comprehensive site covering French windmills - there is coverage of 200+ mills, with 300+ photos, and also some extras, such as an extensive collection of minature models of windmills.
Item: #498, Posted: 25/8/05.

Argos Hill mill swathed in scaffolding

Nigel Freeman has posted a photo of Argos Hill windmill, taken today, to the geograph site. In fact you cant see any of the windmill - it is entirely covered in scaffolding, and protected under tarpaulins. As Nigel notes, the mill is currently on English Heritage's list of buildings at risk.
Mills: [Mayfield]
Item: #497, Posted: 21/8/05.

Chillenden windmill back to full glory

After Chillenden windmill was destroyed by a storm in November 2003, the parties involved vowed to rebuild it. That has now happened - and the mill is once again complete. There is a good set of pictures of the rebuild, ranging from just the bare framework of the buck in May 2005, through the scaffold covered months of June and July, to the reinstallation of the sails on the 3rd August 2005.
Mills: [Chillenden]
Item: #496, Posted: 20/8/05.

Kentish windmill panoramas

The BBC site has a page with panoramas of Kentish windmills. Included are Cranbrook, Sarre (which it calls Monkton), Stelling Minnis, and Woodchurch.
Mills: [Cranbrook] [Sarre] [Stelling Minnis] [Woodchurch]
Item: #495, Posted: 20/8/05.

Edward DeRose Windmill Cottage

I tend not to list mills for sale on this page, since I've got a separate page for that (and because any property details pages that I might link to are extremely temporary). However, this property caught my eye, as unusual in a number of ways.

The Edward DeRose Windmill Cottage in East Hampton dates from c1885, and is a mock mill - a building simply constructed in the shape of a windmill. The cottage is shingle covered, carrying a set of sails, and were it not for the large windows would pass as a real mill at quick glance.

The property is currently on the market - its East Hampton location on New York State's Long Island means that the $16.5M price tag is not so over the top. For that money you get the 4 bedroom windmill cottage (where the windmill bit contains a foyer on the ground floor, library on the first floor, and an office on the top floor), plus a separate 2 bedroom guest house and studio. Within the walled 3.5 acre gardens there are a 50' swimming pool, tennis court, 3 car garage, and potting shed. Full details may not be live for long, but the extract at Luxist should last longer.
Item: #494, Posted: 19/8/05.

Czech windmill festival

I dont speak Czech, so I can't get the full story out of this, but there are some pictures of a recent festival on July 24th 2005, at the windmill at Kuzelov in Moravia, Czech Republic.

Item: #493, Posted: 10/8/05.

Teenage miller helping out at Fulton mill, Illinois, USA

Johann Van Dijk, aged 17, has been on a 3 week holiday in the USA, and in that time he's spent a good deal of time working at the "De Immigrant" windmill at Fulton, Illinois. In his native Netherlands he's been a trainee miller at Groningen since the age of 12, and the Fulton mill is glad of his experience, and youthfulness!
Item: #492, Posted: 10/8/05.

Geograph website has a good number of wind and watermill images

The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect a geographically representative photograph for every square kilometre of the British Isles. Pictures are taken by anyone who cares to upload to the site.

Check out the results for various categories. Numbers in brackets are the number found when I first wrote thie note.

Windmill - (75)
Windpump - (4)
Mill, watermill - (56)
Watermill - (24)

Item: #491, Posted: 10/8/05.

Windpump devotees interviewed

Whilst it had no direct newsworthiness, there was a pleasant filler piece about windmill (as in windpump) devotees in Texas.

The piece includes interviews and comments from

Phil West, a Sherrif's lieutenant who bought and restored a 1928 Aermotor windpump
Ray Cirbo, who at 78 still keeps busy in his retirement, restoring and selling windpumps
Rachel LaRue who has a couple of windpumps, and collects windmill memorabilia
Bob Bracher, a vice president at the Texas-based Aermotor Windmill Co

Item: #490, Posted: 10/8/05.

Stansted windmill response has been low key

Despite leafletting every local resident in Stansted, there has been just a 1% response rate to the appeal to support the local windmill. Over the course of a month, just £890 has been raised, against a target of £25,000 (of a £75,000 total with other funds) needed to preserve Stansted windmill.

The mill trustees (which include the local council) are exploring a number of other funding avenues.
Mills: [Stansted Mountfitchet]
See also:Item #456
Item: #489, Posted: 23/7/05.

Baltic Flour Mills, Gateshead

This is a glowing photo of the Baltic Flour Mills, showing the building bathed in the wonderful evening light. The building is now the Baltic centre of contemporary art, and was converted from the building that housed the grain silos for Rank Hovis's 1950's quayside mill, opening in its converted form in July 2002.

The Baltic, and in fact the whole of the twin cities of Gateshead and Newcastle (joined by the Millennium Bridge) got a lot of media coverage this week, thanks to a photo shoot and installation by Spencer Tunick on 17th July, featuring the architecture of the cities, and 1700 nudes.

Item: #488, Posted: 23/7/05.

Redbourn mill bakery plans approved

There is a very readable report of the planning meeting at which the plans to add an artisan bakery at Rebourn mill were approved. There was discussion as to whether the plans would increase the traffic down the narrow lane to the mill, and a question as to whether bats currently nest in the buildings, but the whole scheme was approved:

"The proposal is considered as a positive contribution to the locality through the regeneration of the historic watermill building in an educational and cultural sense."

See also:Item #470
Item: #487, Posted: 23/7/05.

Yorkshire Mills Group

Geraldine Mathieson, currently Chairman of the Lincolnshire Mills Group is taking the first steps towards starting a Yorkshire Mills Group. An announcement was placed in the latest issue of the SPAB Mills Section newsletter, and Geraldine is keen to hear from possible members and potential committee members. Contact details can be found on the Lincolnshire Mills Group site.
Item: #486, Posted: 5/7/05.

SPAB Flanders tour, plus commercial windmill tour of Lincolnshire

The SPAB Mills Section has long organized tours of mills for their members, with the next one being a weekend tour to Flanders, Belgium 1st-4th Sept 2005.

I've also been notified of a commercially arranged tour of windmills in Lincolnshire by Lindum Heritage, for the weekend 21st-23rd October, at a cost of £225.
Item: #485, Posted: 5/7/05.

Cap lifted off at Wicklewood

The cap has been lifted off the Norfolk Windmills Trust's mill at Wicklewood, as part of a £35,000 restoration. Last worked about 60 years ago, the mill saw some restoration in the 1980's, but since then a rack broke, causing the cap to stick. The plan is to restore the mill to working order.
Mills: [Wicklewood]
Item: #484, Posted: 3/7/05.

This news feed now available via RSS

If you find yourself checking this page on a regular basis for any updates, you may be interested to see that you can now get the data via an RSS feed.
Item: #483, Posted: 3/7/05.

Eskdale Mill in Boot sold

The future of Eskdale Mill in Boot has been secured, with news that Cumbria County Council has sold the mill to Eskdale Mill and Heritage Trust, for a price something over £100,000. The trust will continue to open the mill to the public, and expect to start a "friends of the mill" very soon.
Item: #482, Posted: 30/6/05.

Windmill as an "Angel of the North" for East Anglia

I'm not sure what to make of these plans to build a "giant windmill symbol" in East Anglia - why not simply make the most of the impressive windmills the region is already famous for?

Apparently the plans for the "Eastern Windmill" by a group calling itself the Millwrights, were conceived as an entry in a competition by the East of England Development Agency to create a landmark for the region. The idea was not selected as a winner, but the group are continuing with the development themselves, so far having created a model from the plans.
Item: #481, Posted: 15/6/05.

Photos of Pitstone Green

This photo of Pitstone Green is one of a set of them shot just before the sun set on 7th June 2005. At small sizes the averaging out of the pixel data creates an impressive photo with unusual vivid colours. (At larger image sizes some of the effect is lost as the noise in the image is more apparent, but its still a well composed and observed image). The photo shows that the cart wheel on the tailpole has rotted through on the lower part of the rim - leaving just the metal band holding it together. Other than that, the mill is in good condition.

Check out the other images in the set as well, which include another unusual coloured shot of the sails against the sky, plus a number showing the barley growing in the fields around the mill

Mills: [Pitstone Green]
Item: #480, Posted: 13/6/05.

Watermill Theatre Newbury, Berks is up for sale

As its name suggests, the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, Berkshire is housed in a converted watermill. Now that its theatrical owners, the husband and wife team of Jill Fraser and James Sargant, are looking to retire, the theatre is up for sale, at around £1.7M.

The brick mill, on the River Lambourn, dates from about 1820, and was converted to a theatre which seats 220 well over 20 years ago, though some remnants of the milling heritage including the mill race and wheel were retained. As a theatre, the Watermill has become very influential, with many shows transferring to the West End, and on to Broadway as well.

Another report here.
Item: #479, Posted: 13/6/05.

Photos of Long Island windmills

There is a collection of photos of Long Island windmills taken on May 22nd 2005. These show that the new roof of Hook Mill, East Hampton (erroneously labeled a water mill!) has been completed, and the mill is back to looking splendid.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Beebe windmill at Bridgehampton - these photos show that there is but one sail on the mill, and that is badly damaged.
Item: #478, Posted: 11/6/05.

Wray Common cap lifted back into place

The cap of Wray common windmill, Reigate has been lifted back in to place as the latest stage in the work to restore, at least visually, the windmill.

The mill was sold at auction a year ago, to Paul Baker and David Tate for £326,000. The pair have been renovating the property, spending an estimated half million pounds including building an extension to the mill, which is now house converted. The mill stopped work around 1895, and from 1967 was the residence of John Skinner, described as an "eccentric actuary", till he died in 1996, when his partner Jill McEvedy occupied the mill. She moved on in 2003, and the mill was sold.
Mills: [Reigate]
Item: #477, Posted: 9/6/05.

Old Mills in the Mid-West

The book Old Mills in the Mid-West written by Leslie Swanson was published in 1985. Leslie died in 2003, at the age of 97, but copies of his book (and indeed his other books on Americana) are currently available via his estate. I've written a fuller review of the mills book, which gives an introduction to watermills and windmills in the mid-western states of the USA. Details of how to get hold of the book can be found via the review page.
Item: #476, Posted: 9/6/05.

Ullesthorpe Windmill Project

The Ullesthorpe Windmill Project is aiming to restore the windmill in Ullesthorpe, Leicestershire, mostly via the volunteer work of local residents.

The work is being documented via a blog, which has got off to a very lively and informative start. The blog also includes a good set of photos of the mill.
Mills: [Ullesthorpe]
Item: #475, Posted: 9/6/05.

Previous archive - Current news - Index of headlines - Next archive

Last updated 19th March 2008