Most of the windmills in England were used for one of two purposes
grinding corn
pumping water for drainage
The term "industrial windmills" refers to mills used for purposes other than
these two.
A gazetteer being compiled by Roy Gregory currently includes 172 known
examples of such mills in the UK.
Electrcity generation
There are of course numerous wind turbines which produce electricity from the
power of the wind. However this page is restricted to windmills of
traditional design, so out-and-out turbines are excluded.
St Margaret's Bay, Kent
Sandhurst, Kent - originally a
corn mill, but now being reconstructed, to serve as a house with
electricity generation capabilities
Perhaps this is stretching the definition of "traditional" too far,
but one of the challenges of the TV series Scrapheap Challenge was to
build a windmill to grind coffee.
Threshing
A number of the recorded windmills on the
Isle of Man are recorded as driving threshing machinery.
