Bardwell Mill is a Grade II* listed 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 Bardwell

Bardwell, Suffolk

Bardwell is a village and civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk, England.- History and Amenities :The Domesday Book records the population of Bardwell in 1086 to be 86.The River Blackbourne passes about half a mile west of the village...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, 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 is under restoration.

History

Bardwell Mill was built in 1823. It worked by wind until 1925 and then by a Blackstone

Blackstone & Co

Blackstone & Co. was a farm implement maker at Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. In 1896 they built lamp start oil engines. By 1912 they had developed a new diesel engine that ran on vaporizing oil and was fired by a spark...

 oil engine

Oil engine

Oil engine may refer to:* Hornsby-Akroyd oil engine* Hot bulb engine* Hesselman engine...

 until 1941. The mill was derelict in 1978 but was later purchased by James Waterfield, who completed the restoration of the mill in 1985. The mill was sold to Geoffrey and Enid Wheeler in July 1987. On 16 October 1987

Great Storm of 1987

The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the night of 15/16 October 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused winds to hit much of southern England and northern France...

, the mill was tailwinded when one of the gears in the fantail drive system became disengaged. The result was that the windshaft sheared at the rear of the canister, bringing the sails crashing to the ground. Restoration work began again in 1989 but was hampered by limited funds. Geoffrey Wheeler died in 1995 and in 1997 The Friends of Bardwell Windmill was set up. English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 and St Edmundsbury Borough Council

St Edmundsbury

St Edmundsbury may refer to:* The old or poetic name for Bury St Edmunds* St Edmundsbury, a borough centred on the town of Bury St Edmunds* The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and St James's Cathedral, St Edmundsbury...

gave over £73,000 towards the estimated cost of £92,000 to restore the mill. The balance was to be raised by the Friends. A replacement cap, cast iron windshaft and fantail were fitted to the mill in 2004.

Owing to rising costs, it was decided that the new sails would be constructed by volunteer labour. The first pair of sails were completed by late summer 2008 and fitted in late 2010.

Description

Bardwell Mill is a four storey tower mill. The beehive cap is winded by a fantail. When fitted, the four double Patent sails have a span of 63 feet (19.2 m) and are carried on a cast iron windshaft which was cast in 1989 (the original windshaft in the mill was cast in two pieces). The brake wheel is wood, driving a cast iron wallower carried on a wooden upright shaft. The wooden great spur wheel drives two pairs of overdrift millstones. A wooden crownwheel on the upright shaft drives a sack hoist.

External links

• Windmill World webpage on Bardwell Mill.