At the March meeting of the History Club we were given a talk about the restoration of Heage Windmill by Mary and Brian Naylor. It was a story of much foresight, hard work and, good fortune in obtaining the large grants of money necessary for such an ambitious project. Old photographs showed that for much of the last century, the tower was in a ruinous state. The cap had been blown off, the sails gone and it had been struck by lightning.
The story began with a 1791 advert in the Derby Mercury for a stone- mason to build the tower. However, the catch was, that he had to quarry and dress the stone himself! Consequently it wasn’t finished until 1797, but it was well built and of a very efficient design. The cap on top could rotate freely and the rear fan adjusted the position of the cap so that the sails faced the wind. The actual grindstones came from near Paris, called “Burr” stones, they are pieced together from blocks of very hard silica (our millstones, from say Millstone Edge are too coarse and were only used for animal feed – provender). The ideal wind speed for milling is about 20 m.p.h. Above 28 m.p.h. the brake has to be applied and the milling stopped, otherwise the mill would shake itself to pieces as in 1894 when the cap and sails were torn off in a gale. She was later rebuilt – this time with six sails to give extra power, but in 1919 was struck by lightning which split one of the main timbers. Times had not been so good after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (they protected British producers – but made the price of bread desperately high). After 1846 foreign grain could be imported but that meant that the big flour producers could build huge new dock-side roller-mills and so undercut our local millers. Decline set in and slowly she became an abandoned ruin, much loved by countryside artists. One of them – Karl Wood – actually cycled around England to make beautiful paintings of mills. Eventually D.C.C. with great foresight bought the mill for £300 (they still own it) and a band of enthusiasts embarked on the restoration. It cost so much grant money because even after the cap and sails had been constructed, they had to be lifted by a crane costing £200 per hour and to get the crane on site, a road costing £40,000 had to be laid. As a concession to modern materials, the huge brake ring is now lined with Ferodo type materials and the spar which was split by lightning is fastened together with Araldite! Nothing is ever straight forward – in 2001 they were held up for months because of foot and mouth and they had to dig away about 8 tons of bird droppings from inside the building. However the huge vertical drive shaft (made from a single tree trunk) was still serviceable and is still working today after 215 years. Learning from the past, they have installed lightning conductors. The first wheat was milled in 2003 and the mill is open for guided tours at weekends and Bank Holidays, from April to October. This talk was filled with lively discussions and questions and answers with the audience and they sold quite a few bags of flour! Many thanks Mary and Brian. The talk on April 11th has the intriguing title of “Notable and Notorious Women of Derbyshire” by Joan Ward. Everyone welcome (in the Institute at 8pm.)
Brian Woodall