Tilting at Windmills

[Hagar]

I've been hoping for a nice day to visit the nearby restored windmill at High Salvington to take a few photos. Today was the opportunity I've been waiting for so I took a short drive up there to find it. The last time I remember being in this neck of the woods was when I was taking driving lessons back in the 60s. It took me a while to find the mill but when I got there I had the most amazing piece of luck. A few guys from the restoration society had just started removing 2 of the sails for maintenance. This is not something you see every day so I asked if I could come in & take some photos. Needless to say I offered to help in return.

I had a very interesting morning & was given a guided tour of the mill which is fully functional & the flour produced is sold to help keep it going. I also had the pleasure of meeting some very skilled people. This could be a very dangerous operation & just shows what can be done by very few people who know exactly what they're doing. Here's some of my photos.
Full story of the mill & restoration here. http://www.findonvillage.com/0248_findon_windmills_sister_mill.htm

This is how it looked when I first arrived. Another unsuspecting visitor was roped in to help. He told me he's a test driver at the new Rolls-Royce car factory at Goodwood. When you get out & about in the real world you never know who you will meet.



All ready for removing the main pin which is all that's holding the sail to the structure. The man who will climb up there to remove it once worked for Rolls-Royce Aero Engines at Derby. He now has a furniture restoration business.


That's the first part safely finished. Now the complete sail has to be carefully turned 180 degrees to work on the opposite one.


Both sails removed. That's it for today.


My, those sails are heavy but a job well done. I promised to go & help refit them.


If it wasn't for enthusiasts like these many of the old traditional skills would be lost for ever.

[Rifleman]

Fabulous post there Doug....just wonderful........thanks !

[fido]

Fantastic! Good luck, good pics, great story. Who could ask for anything more, especially for free. I hope you remember to take your camera for the refit.  How about some interior shots next time as well. D-mn I'm getting pushey. Would it help if I said  Please

                           Fido  ;D

[Hagar]

Thanks guys. I'm glad you like my humble efforts. As I'm sure you will appreciate, it's a tad difficult operating a camera when you're hauling on a rope with both hands as though your life depended on it. In fact, at one point, the man removing the pin was depending on it. I obviously missed some opportunities for good shots but sometimes photography has to take a back seat.

Fido. I didn't take any interior shots today as it's surprisingly cramped & there were 3 of us in there. It might be better if I can persuade them to let me loose inside on my own on my next visit. Otherwise I'll take a trip over to the Singleton Open Air museum sometime & take some shots inside their water mill which is similar but much bigger.

PS. I rarely go anywhere now without my camera. I've also had a few close calls while driving along looking at things with a photographer's eye instead of paying attention to where I'm going. I must try to be more careful.

[Rifleman]

Fabulous post there Doug, ......just wonderful,...Thanks  8)

[Craig.]

stunning pics doug.
good to see these things being looked after.

[Ivan]

LOL only ONE small windmill... small enough to takedown the sails whitout a crane.


That's what we call a windmill. These are the ones next to where i live (Schermerhorn, try to pronounce that as a non-dutch speaker  ;D)

And the ones 5 km further away.

Total amount of windmills in the community: 11, only Zaandam and Kinderdijk have more

[Viktor_Z]

[quote]Fabulous post there Doug, ......just wonderful,...Thanks

[Hagar]

LOL only ONE small windmill... small enough to takedown the sails whitout a crane.

Like anything else it's easy enough if you know how.
This is the first time I've seen it done or even thought about it. Windmills were once common all over the south of England but there are very few examples left now, especially working ones.

Thanks for posting your photos. I understand that the Dutch windmills are a different design to ours. Are they still in use or purely decorative?

[Ivan]

When the electrical pumps can't cope with the water, some are used as backup.

The wheat mills are usually into the ecological-correct food stuff, or just a tourist attraction.

And that way of connecting the sails to the axle is totally different from that used in holland. You just can't take off the front and wiggle it off, you have to lift the whole thing out from the top. you need at least 35 meters height (about 20 meters of iron + 10 meter lifting space because it has to be lifted out), and a day of preparations before you have one sail out, after removing all the wooden parts.
I wanted to post a photo of lifting the sails out, but couldn't find one

The windmill on your photo is called a 'gesloten standerdmolen' in dutch. That means that it has a big central wooden pilar, resting on the closed base which is mounted in such a way that it can turn around it. It's a very old type of windmill

[Hagar]

Thanks Ivan. Very interesting indeed. The one in my photos is called a post mill in this country. The complete structure (including the lower grinding stones) is resting on a central post. This is supported on the base in such a way that the post itself doesn't touch the ground. This enables adjustment if it goes out of true for some reason. From what I was told this is a traditional English design that goes back at least to the 11th century.

[Ivan]

you have lots of this type of windmill in belgium, but as the design is not suited for water pumping they aren't common in holland.

As the underside is too small to have the stones in there i suspect they are in the top part, as they are in holland/belgium

And it has quite a forward lean... needs some looking after or the top axle supports deteriorate too fast

That site is a nice read... they call 20 windmills a large amount, in our community we HAD 52, of which 11 still stand

This is the definitive source on dutch windmills... but it's dutch-only

[Hagar]

And it has quite a forward lean... needs some looking after or the top axle supports deteriorate too fast

It's actually plumb & true or it wouldn't be possible to use it. The "lean" is an optical illusion caused by my camera & the angle the shots were taken. I did consider editing the image but decided not to. You're correct about the stones which are on the upper floor. Only one of the 2 pairs of stones is in regular use.

Thanks for the link.

[FLYING_TRUCKER]

Thanks for the great pictures and info.

Wondering...Did windmills date back to when they built castles?  If so are there any castle/windmill combinations in England/Scotland/Wales or Ireland to-day?

Thanks.....Doug

[Hagar]

Thanks Trucker. I should point out that I'm no expert on windmills. From what the guys told me on the day I took these photos the earliest records of windmills in this country are of monks building them. These would have looked much like this one & probably used to mill grain for flour. The monks would be associated with monasteries or abbeys rather than castles. Some of these might well be located near castles but I don't know of any offhand.

PS. There aren't too many surviving windmills now. Except for a few reconditioned examples like this one most were demolished many years ago.

PPS. I just found this on Google. http://www.bamburghcastle.com/
Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland. It apparently has a windmill tower & guess what? An Aviation Artefacts Museum. MIght be worth a visit.