Chapman's mill, Edenham, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand 🌍

The brothers Alfred and Frederick Chapman settled on Edenham Station, Hawkes Bay in the 1850's. Their sketch and watercolour album includes scenes from around the station, showing the windmill that they built, a small open trestle post mill with bowsprit stayed sails and a high mounted tailpole. The close-up image of the mill shows it on a hilltop above the farm, as does one of the other images looking from the cottage up to the hillside above. However, other images in the album, including one titled "Alfred's first house", shows a mill on the flat land surrounding the house, so I assume that this was probably an earlier incarnation of the same mill, which was later moved to be better located.

Being a mill essentially for private use, many of the usual information sources such as newspaper ads touting for trade are not available for this mill. The brothers at least initially bought in wheat rather than growing it themselves, seeming in greater quantities than needed for their own consumption, and may have provided flour to others on an informal basis.