Mills owned by the National Trust 🌍

The windmills include each of the three types of post, smock, and tower mill. Amongst them are

• the post mill at Pitstone, Buckinghamshire
• the last remaining thatched tower mill at High Ham, Somerset
• the last windmill on the Isle of Wight, at Bembridge
• a small drainage smock mill at Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire

The National Trust watermills fare much better, in terms of being in working order. The Trust has an ongoing programme of mill restoration, which in the past often involved the millwright Martin Watts, and a good number of the mills can produce flour.

The Trust also has examples of water-powered "factories", such as the large mill at Quarry Bank, which has been open since 1978.

Details can be found below of most National Trust mills that are open to the public. The Trust also owns a number of mill properties that are not necessarily publicly accessible (some being leased as residences), including:

• Burnham Overy, Norfolk
• Blicking watermill, Norfolk
• Boar Mill, Corfe Castle, Dorset - undergoing restoration for possible future opening
• West Mill, Corfe Castle, Dorset - just a ruin
• Flatford Mill, Suffolk, which is leased to the Field Studies Council.
• Lundy Island which has a windmill tower - the island is leased to the Landmark Trust and can be visited
• Gibson Mill, West Yorkshire - also with plans to reopen

There are also a number of water-powered pumps to be found on NT estates.

Some "countryside" properties of the National Trust also have (sometimes minor) mill remains on them, such as the windmill at Winchelsea which blew down in the Great Storm of 1987, and the National Trust decided not to reinstate the mill, so that all that now remains are 3 of the piers that supported the trestle.

Bibliography

• Watermills and Windmills - A National Trust Pocketbook, J Kenneth Major, 1986. ISBN 0-7117-0176-8
• Corn watermills of the National Trust in England, Nigel Harris, 2019. ISBN 978-0955150166

National Trust for Scotland

• Barry Mill
• Preston Mill