Alfriston Windmill is a tower mill

Tower mill

A tower mill is a type of windmill which consists of a brick or stone tower, on top of which sits a roof or cap which can be turned to bring the sails into the wind....

 at Alfriston

Alfriston

Alfriston is a village and civil parish in the East Sussex district of Wealden, England. The village lies in the valley of the River Cuckmere, about four miles north-east of Seaford and south of the main A27 trunk road and part of the large area of Polegate...

, Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 which has been converted to residential accommodation.

History

Alfriston Windmill was built in 1834. The mill was working until 1905 when a sail was damaged by a cow. The mill worked for another two years on two sails. In 1908, the mill was stripped of machinery, and had been converted into a house by 1910.

Description

Alfriston Windmill is a three storey brick tower mill. It had four Spring sails

Windmill sail

Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different designs, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails.-Jib sails:...

 and the beehive cap was winded by a fantail

Windmill fantail

A Fantail is a small windmill mounted at right angles to the sails, at the rear of the windmill, and which turns the cap automatically to bring it into the wind. The fantail was patented in 1745 by Edmund Lee, a blacksmith working at Brockmill Forge near Wigan, England, and perfected on mills...

. The mill drove two pairs of underdrift millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s. All that remains today is the tower, with various additions and extensions.

Millers

• Richard Saxby 1834
• Daniel Sudbury 1845
• William Shoesmith 1855 - 1866
• Thomas Harvey 1866 - 1874
• Thomas Fennell 1881
• George Hewitt - 1907

References for above:-

Further reading

Online version