Mill News from Windmill World

Windmills of Venezuela

1 Feb 2012 12:00 UT

Coverage extended to another country - Venezuela. (Yes, they are just mock mills).

A further great selection from Alan Caston

1 Feb 2012 12:00 UT

In early 2010, I was sent a number of spectacular images taken by Alan Caston from the 1930s onwards, which were a result of his daughter Stella scanning a set of mostly negatives that she had come across. Recently whilst working through some more family albums, a good number more images have been found, and although these are prints rather than negatives which makes them harder to scan well, there are further set of impressive images that have surfaced here.

As these are prints, some of them have been identified from Alan's writing on the back of the prints. There are however still some unidentified images, for which any suggestions of identifications are very welcome.

Millstone from Ramsey windmill, Essex

15 Nov 2011 12:00 UT

I notice that the bungalow called "Millstone", The Street, Ramsey, Essex is currently for sale. The sales particulars help explain why the property is so named:

1970's built three bedroomed detached bungalow ... Enclosed Entrance Porch: Paved floor incorporating a Millstone from the local windmill. ... Pleasant outlook towards The Windmill at the rear.

Open day for Downfields mill, Soham

5 Sep 2011 12:00 UT

The Soham Heritage & Buildings Preservation Trust will be manning an open day at Downfields Tower Windmill, Soham, Cambridgeshire on 11th September 2011 from 11pm - 4pm. There will also be a photo display of many of the windmills and drainage mills that existed in the Soham Parish, including a map dated 1845 showing where all the 30-35 windmills including drainage mill were located in the parish. The photo display will also cover the Hunt Bros, Millwrights in Soham in the 19th century etc. The windmill will be open for viewing, this is quite a rare event for the windmill, as it has been closed to the public for a few years.

More details about the event can be found at http://www.shbpt.sohamroots.co.uk/

More information about Downfields windmill and other windmills in Soham can be found at http://www.sohamroots.co.uk/mills/downfields.html

The growing number of windmills in Schiedam

5 Sep 2011 12:00 UT

A few years ago I visited Schiedam, to see the 5 mills there that are amongst the tallest mills in the world. Having vistied the expected number of mills, I could still see another mill that I hadn't realized was there - which turned out to be the Noletmolen, constructed 2005, at the Nolet distillery to generate electricity.

I was trying to identify this photo of a very tall mill which reminded me of the Schiedam mills, so I checked up on them at the Dutch windmill database, and found that the database now lists 7 mills in Schiedam - the latest addition is the 2010 constructed De Kameel, a grain and electricity generating mill.

... and as for identifying that photo - I'm still looking for suggestions!

New mock mill on site of Chislet mill

3 Sep 2011 12:00 UT

On 15th September 2005, the smock mill at Chislet was destroyed in a fire, and the site ended up being completely cleared. A property developer, Colin Algar of C&AContractors bought the site, and since January 2011 has been building a new 4 bed house on the site, including a mock mill that approximates to the original. The new mill building is steel framed, but is wood clad to appear to have more traditional construction.

TV report from Meridian Tonight.

Panoramio groups

2 Sep 2011 12:00 UT

Panoramio is a great resource for getting to see photos of places around the world, and I make extensive use of it around this site. Just recently they introduced Groups, that allow photos with a common theme to be collected together.

There are an increasing number of groups for mills that I've found:

Mills - 65 members, 475 photos
Windmills - 11 members, 90 photos
mills (mlýny) - 21 members, 84 photos
Windmills / Windmühlen - 19 members, 75 photos
Mills, Barns, and Farms - 1 member, 36 photos
**Moinhos de Vento e Moinhos de Maré * Windmills** - 2 members, 26 photos
Moulins - Windmills - Windmolens - 2 members, 23 photos
Molinos - 3 members, 20 photos
watermills / Wassermühlen - 5 members, 18 photos
Windmühle - 3 members, 10 photos
Moulins à eau - watermills - watermolens - 2 members, 14 photos
Windmühlen - 1 member, 1 photo
Mill - 1 member, 1 photo (and that doesn't look much like a mill!)
Windmühle - windmill - 1 member, 0 photos

There are also some wind turbine groups:

Wind power - 5 members, 8 photos
Wind farm in Lipniki - 1 member, 6 photos

This splintering by language is slightly unfortunate, but it does look as if the "obvious" names in English are winning out. There are probably a few more groups that I've missed, but once again Google have shown how poor they are at providing search facilities - web search they do well, but feature search regularly fails to perform, for example here my search for "windmill" fails to show any of the groups that include the exact word, just not at the start of the name.

Your paintings - uncovering the nation's art collection

30 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

Your Paintings is a web site from the BBC in collaboration with The Public Catalogue Foundation which aims to create a complete record of the United Kingdom's national collection of oil, tempera and acrylic paintings and make this accessible to the public. (They've concentrated on these types of painting, largely because there is a tractable number of them - were watercolours to be included these number in the millions, making the project unrealistic). There are around 63,000 (of an estimated 200,000) paintings now available on the site.

A seach for windmill returns 72 items, with some well known painting by artists such as Constable, Van Gogh, but also from lesser known, and indeed "unknown artist" included.

Prints and painting of windmills by Sydney Lee

30 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

Robert Meyrick at the School of Art, Aberystwyth University, is writing a book about the artist Sydney Lee RA (1866-1949). Lee made quite a number of prints and paintings of windmills which are presumed to be in Kent because his wife and her family were from the Rochester area and he did much work around and about the city. However since a number of the works are all simply titled Windmill they are currently unidentified. These were all made around 1903-1920 so of course there's a good chance some of these windmills no longer exist. Any suggestions as to which mills these illustrations show?

post mill 1

post mill 2

smock mill 1

smock mill 1 (again) and smock mill 2

Rye, East Sussex

Burwell Museum awarded Heritage Lottery Fund first round pass to repair historic windmill

30 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

From their press release:

Burwell Museum in East Cambridgeshire has been awarded a £13,400 development grant and a first-round pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund to conduct a project to repair and redisplay the Grade II* listed Stevens' Windmill. This is a first step towards a larger grant from the HLF to deliver the project.
Stevens' Windmill is one of two principle landmarks on the village's horizon and one of the most significant and tangible links to the industrial past of the fen-edge community. Burwell Museum Trust, which owns the windmill and the adjacent museum, is keen to repair and conserve the mill which has been closed to the public for two years due to safety concerns. In July 2010 the windmill was included on the current Buildings at Risk Register.
The first-round pass demonstrates the Heritage Lottery Fund's interest in the project and is an invitation for Burwell Museum to further develop the project to a second-round application. Heritage Lottery Fund have also awarded a £13,400 Development Grant to aid in this work.
Paul Hawes, Chairman of the Trustees of Burwell Museum said, “We are delighted to hear that our project has received a first-round pass and are very hopeful we can develop the project to achieve a full grant from HLF.
Stevens' Mill is an important part of the village's heritage and we look forward to incorporating it properly into the museum.
Burwell Museum will be holding a first consultation session about the plans for the Museum and the Windmill on Thursday 25th of August from 2-5pm.

Yorkshire Windmills Through Time

30 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

I've not had a chance to read a copy yet, but I've been sent publication info on a new book illustrating the windmills of Yorkshire. From the press release:

Yorkshire Windmills Through Time

Alan Whitworth

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Yorkshire Windmills have changed and developed over the last century.
The author's interest in windmills reaches back well over ten years and culminated in Yorkshire Windmills, published in 1991, a later publication, Tyke Towers - Yorkshire Windmills, and the foundation of the Yorkshire Windmill Society. A reviewer in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal wrote that Yorkshire Windmills was "clearly a labour of love ... and the author has made a substantial investment of time and there is no doubt the reader can benefit from the wealth of references collected".
Now, ten years on, further research and losses have created a need for a new work on the subject. However, the idea of this book is to illustrate some of the remaining windmills of Yorkshire without too much preamble, and where possible to revise errors and omissions in my earlier volume. But this is not a scholarly book; this is first and foremost a pictorial celebration and record of these tyke towers for the avid amateur historian and informed reader.
Alan Whitworth was born in Huddersfield and now lives in Whitby. He worked in graphic design and printing before becoming involved in local history and the preservation of old buildings. A founding member of the British Dovecote Society, Alan now writes and lectures full time on architecture and local history.

The book is available now direct from Amberley Publishing or via Amazon:

Windmill on the Wye

30 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

The picture above is an oil painting attributed to Edward Niemann and inscribed on the reverse "On the Wye". I'm trying to find out more about the mill pictured, and wonder if anyone can help.

This is not a location I recognise - and to be honest it's more than possible a lot of artistic licence may have been applied here. First of all I'd say it is most unusual to have a (corn) windmill located right by a river - after all water power is generally far more predictable than wind, so when you had a choice, you would build a watermill in such a location. The mill shown is a post mill, where the whole structure is turned to face the wind, and I know of no such example in Britain where the access to the mill was on the side (if you think of the sails as being on the front) - all such access was to the rear, where the weight of the steps were used to help counterbalance the weight of the sails on the front.

My conclusion is that the scene may have been painted "from memory", rather than being a particular image of an actual place - but can anyone help confirm or deny that?

Chinnor buck lifted on to trestle

7 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

On Wed 3rd Aug 2011, the buck of Chinnor windmill was lifted up and placed on the unique three crossbar/six quarterbar trestle. This represents a major milestone in the prolonged reconstruction of this mill, since it now means that it now looks recognisably like a windmill, though the project now looks forward to the next challenges, which include the reinstatement of the windshaft, and the construction of sails.

The lift was reported by the Thame Gazette.

Some photos taken on the day of the lift by Colin Grenville:

Documenting the Murphy windmill rebuild

1 Aug 2011 12:00 UT

In May 2008, Ron Henggeler was passing the Murphy windmill site in Golden Gate Park, where work had newly started on preparing the old base for the windmill rebuild. Shawn Connelly, the chief engineer working on the project, saw him photographing the work, and invited him in to take a closer look.

Since then, Ron has returned to the work many times, building up a detailed photographic record of the rebuild. There's currently over 300 photos included, ranging up to late June 2011, with I'm sure many more to come as the tower gets completed and fitted out.

Flickr photostream of Upminster windmill

17 Jul 2011 12:00 UT

My page on Upminster windmill currently links to around 200 photos of Upminster windmill on Flickr. Whilst looking to see if there were any more, I came across the Flickr account of Upminster Windmill itself, which certainly satisfies the desire for additional photos - it has around 1300 photos in it.

The photos were taken by a number of people, over a wide timespan, and cover the windmill over both historical periods, and also its more recent history. There are also albums that cover some other (for the most part unidentified) mills, and also family photos of the Abraham family who worked the Upminster mill.

Albums of particular interest are:

Emily's mill photos from the 1920's and 30's
Pictures from Bob Sharp from the 1940's - 1970
Pictures from John Winn (1) including Abraham family photos

Coverage extended to two additional territories

16 Jul 2011 12:00 UT

Just a quick entry to note that I've added pages for two additional territories:

Puerto Rico - with a number of windmills used for sugar production
Taiwan - just mock mills found here so far

Lytham restored to having 4 sails again

16 Jul 2011 12:00 UT

After winter storms damaged its sails, Lytham windmill has been a two sail mill - though unusually the two sails that were kept on formed a V shape, rather than being opposite each other. However, it has just gained 2 new sails and fantail, which were made and installed by Wesham firm N Gillett and Son.

Other coverage:

Work starts on the smock of Murphy windmill, Golden Gate Park

16 Jul 2011 12:00 UT

Work has once again started on the reconstruction of the Murphy windmill in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. The concrete base has been scaffolded for around three years with no other activity to be seen, but now real progress is being made as the structural timbers of the wooden smock are being assembled, and from photos posted online I can see that there is currently scaffolding up the full height of the tower. The photos are linked from my entry on the Murphy windmill.

It sounds as if the current plan is to turn the adjacent millwrights cottage into a restaurant. The place to go to for information ought to be the website of The Campaign to save the Golden Gate Park windmills but the last update to that site was in 2007, when it stated that the Murphy windmill would be fully reconstructed by 2009.

There are some local news reports that provide a bit more detail:

Just one windmill painting stamp we can't identify

28 Jun 2011 12:00 UT

Early last year, Fred Atkins of the Windmill Study Unit asked for my help in identifying some windmill paintings that had been turned into (fake) postage stamps (aka cinderellas). At the time he provided a number of images, including one that had a stamp as the inner part of a sheetlet, with another windmill painting surrounding it. Although I identified the stamp itself, I failed to identify the outer painting.

Fred's having another push to try and identify that elusive painting, and has provided a second image, where the outer image, in mirror reversed form is actually used on the stamp itself. He's posted to Mill Writing at the Mills Archive, (using the original dual image) and I've also included the second single image here. Unlike the other paintings, which were "classic" works of art (with quality photo reproductions sourced via the Corbis stock photo library), this remaining painting is rather more primitive - almost a cartoon image of a Romany style caravan in front of a river and a cottage, with a post mill in the background. It could almost have been grabbed from a greetings card - I very much doubt that it represents any real scene.

Having tried to identify the stamps then, I wrote a technical follow up article about how I went about it. Google have just upgraded their image search service to include searching by providing a source image to search for, which provides another outlet to try which was not original at the time - but that fails to come up with any answer in this case either (and I have tried searching for both the original and mirror reversed forms).

Kilvey Hill windmill

12 Jun 2011 12:00 UT

Geograph has done it again - leading me to the remains of a windmill that I had overlooked. This time it's in Wales, at Kilvey Hill to the east of Swansea, and to be honest there are not many remains to be seen - basically just a small heap of stones that represents all that remains of the wall of the mill. If I'm not mistaken, you can make out the rough circle of the foundations on Google Earth, and that actually has an aerial view from 1945, at which point the remains look somewhat more substantial.

It's worth noting, just because I had laregly overlooked these till now, but there is now a substantial article on Geograph which attempts to list all UK windmills, and also a generated map of all images labelled windmill. Just for fun, and unrelated to mills, you could look at the corresponding maps for beach which does a pretty good job of defining the coastline automatically, or at church which gives a fairly solid fill of Britain (except in the under-populated areas of Scotland).

Windmills on Civitas Londinum

12 Jun 2011 12:00 UT

Civitas Londinum is a map of London from c1560. It's often called the Agas map, and although there are no known copies of the 16th century original, there are 3 copies of the 1633 publication. Furthermore, a facsimile of that was published in 1874.

There is an online version of the map, digitized from the 1874 facsimile edition. Split in to an arbitrary 48 panels, the map shows a number of windmills:

a mill on a hill to the east of "The Waye to S. Alban" (the current A1)
4 mills, split across two panels on Fynesbury Fyeld

Clayton mills in the 1910's

12 Jun 2011 12:00 UT

I was asked to identify some old photos of windmills, which were easily identified as being taken at Jack and Jill, Clayton. With thanks to Emmy Eustace, I've put these images together on the page Clayton mills in the 1910's.

Noel Garner's painting of windmills

31 May 2011 12:00 UT

Noel Garner has had a long term interest in producing paintings of windmills, and a selection of his windmill paintings in watercolours are available online at the Cambridge Art Academy website.

He also paints in other media, and there are a number of blog posts giving details of recent subjects:

A couple of years ago, in association with SPAB, Noel produced a calendar with 12 of his watercolours reproduced in it.

A different selection of his paintings can be found at his earlier windmill gallery.

Doppelganger mock mills

28 May 2011 12:00 UT

As well as documenting real windmills, this site also covers mock mills, for a number of reasons

by listing them for what they are, then I can clearly document that they are not real mills
their existence is often an indication of how important real mills are to the history of an area
simply because they amuse me

I was therefore doubly amused when I recently came across the fact that the Old Women's Mill (Altweibermühle) at the Tripsdrill adventure park in Germany (a mock windmill housing a slide, and quite a historic building, having been constructed in 1929), was itself subject of a replica mock mill (at reduced scale) at the Freizeitpark Lochmühle elsewhere in the same country. Details of both of these are now on my Windmills of Germany page.

To stretch the amusement even further, there is also a scale model kit available of the Tripsdrill ride.