Hawridge Windmill
Encyclopedia
Hawridge Windmill which is also known as Cholesbury Windmill is a disused tower mill
in Hawridge
, Buckinghamshire
. The mill was constructed on the site of an earlier smock mill
and became a private residence in 1913 when the first occupier, the artist Gilbert Cannan
used it as a studio.
A second mill was built on the same site in 1883. This was a tower mill
, thought to be one of the last of its kind built in England
. It was built by Hillsdon's of Tring
for £300. The following year the tall chimney associated with the steam mill was taken down. A grain store was added shortly after. The original mill owners struggled to make it profitable and it was sold and then leased only becoming a going concern when a more experienced miller who remained in charge until the mill finally ceased operation in 1912. It became a private residence in 1913.
and he was assisted by Charles Pedel a journeyman from Wendover
. By 1871 he had been succeeded by Joseph Salt from Congleton
In 1877 the miller was George Wright born in Cholesbury
. In 1881 the last miller of this first mill was Harry Wright from Tring
, Hertfordshire
. Daniel Dwight is recorded as the first miller who occupied the newly built tower mill. A change of ownership resulted in Thomas Robinson from Moulton, Northamptonshire
who was an experienced in steam powered mills, taking over in 1891. He continued to be the miller until it ceased operation in 1912 at which time he retired to the live at the nearby manor house
.
After the mill ceased operation in 1912 it was crudely converted along with the mill house into residential accommodation. It was advertised in the spring of 1913 and was taken by Gilbert Cannan and his new wife Mary (née Ansell), who had previously been married to J. M. Barrie
, the creator of Peter Pan
. The Cannans imnediately set about decorating the mill house property in an avantgarde style and the mill tower into an impromptu studio. Land was acquired at the rear of the property to create a garden. They invited their many friends and acquaintances, many of whom were associated with two artists' groups, the Bloomsbury Group
and the lesser well-known London Group
which were both prominent around the time of the First World War. The couple frequently invited so many of their friends to stay that it necessitated renting out neighbouring cottages. D. H. Lawrence
and his new wife Freda rented a cottage in nearby Bellingdon and Katherine Mansfield
and John Middleton Murry
who were having an affair at the time lodged, next door to the Cannans, at The Gables before renting a cottage three miles away at The Lee. In December 1914 the group were joined by Ukrainian
writer S. S. Koteliansky
and the painter Mark Gertler and all spent a raucous Christmas partying in each others houses. These, and related events at Cholesbury were depicted in pictures or formed the basis of several subsequent accounts in letters, memoirs and novels.
Gertler was a lodger at The Gables, between 1915–16, and soon installed himself in the mill's studio. He painted a famous picture of the mill called Gilbert Cannan at his Mill now on show in the Ashmolean Museum
in Oxford
. The picture depicts Cannan outside the Mill with his two dogs. One of these, which is Black and White in colour is believed to depict a dog that had belonged to the Barries. The original inspiration for Nana in the book Peter Pan and the model for the illustrations of the dog in the first edition of Peter Pan was Porthos the Barries' St Bernard. When Porthos subsequently died the Barries replaced him with Luath a lanseer Newfoundland
dog whose behaviour was studied by the actor that played Nana in the first stage production of Peter Pan. The costume worn in this production was also black and white. The Mill was dubbed 'a poor man's Garsington' by those who also frequented Garsington Manor
near Oxford
, the artists' retreat of Lady Ottoline Morrell
also a frequent guest at the mill. Compton Mackenzie
was a regular visitor and based characters in his magnum opus, The Four Winds of Love on the Cannans and Lawrences. Recollections of his first stay at the mill are reprised through his main character's visit to the Rodneys' mill in the fictitious village of Summertune, Essex. Other acquaintances of the Cannans included; writer David Garnett
, philosopher Bertrand Russell
and historian G. M. Trevelyan
. Like Cannan the patron of the arts Eddie Marsh was keen to support up-and-coming artists such as the novelists Maurice Hewlett
and Hugh Walpole
all three of whom visited. Gertler invited the painter and interior decorator Dora Carrington
with whom he was infatuated only to lose her to the writer Lytton Strachey
who was also a sometime house guest. Gilbert Cannan was a long-time friend of the poet John Drinkwater
whose poem, September includes a reference to Cholesbury.
The Cannans left the mill in 1916 and in 1917 it was rented by a friend of theirs, the celebrated American actress of the day, Doris Keane
who used it as a weekend retreat whilst appearing in London theatre productions. In the 1930s the mill was used as an art studio and for classes by the artist Bernard Adams. During the Second World War it was used as a look out post for the Home Guard
. During the latter part of the 20th century it was owned by Sir David Hatch
, BBC radio producer and a managing directior of BBC radio.
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....
in Hawridge
Hawridge
Hawridge, is a small village in the Chilterns in the county of Buckinghamshire, England and bordering the county boundary with Hertfordshire. It is from Chesham, from both Tring and Berkhamsted....
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
. The mill was constructed on the site of an earlier smock mill
Smock mill
The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...
and became a private residence in 1913 when the first occupier, the artist Gilbert Cannan
Gilbert Cannan
Gilbert Cannan was a British novelist and dramatist.-Early life:Born in Manchester of Scottish descent, he got on badly with his family, and in 1897 he was sent to live in Oxford with the economist Edwin Cannan...
used it as a studio.
History
The first mill on the site,known as the Hawridge Wind and Steam Mill was a smock mill constructed in 1863 by the Norwich Wind and Steam Company, who also installed a steam engine and built an engine house with a tall chimney. The smock mill was bought and sold at least twice; on the second occasion, in 1881, together with the related properties it realised £600. However it appears not to have been profitable due to; its poor design, faults in the construction, and the cost of coal. It was demolished in 1883.A second mill was built on the same site in 1883. This was 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....
, thought to be one of the last of its kind built in 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...
. It was built by Hillsdon's of Tring
Tring
Tring is a small market town and also a civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire, England. Situated north-west of London and linked to London by the old Roman road of Akeman Street, by the modern A41, by the Grand Union Canal and by rail lines to Euston Station, Tring is now largely a...
for £300. The following year the tall chimney associated with the steam mill was taken down. A grain store was added shortly after. The original mill owners struggled to make it profitable and it was sold and then leased only becoming a going concern when a more experienced miller who remained in charge until the mill finally ceased operation in 1912. It became a private residence in 1913.
Description
The mill is accessed via its own unmettled track which passes across Rays Hill Common and between two properties. It is a Grade II listed building registered in 1958.Smock mill
The smock mill comprised a two-storey square brick base with a narrow, eight-sided tarred wooden tower. There were four double-shuttered sails and a six-veined fantail which were attached to machinery contained within a revolving cap.Tower mill
The tower mill has four storeys and built of brick and coated in black rendering. After it ceased to be in operation it has been painted both white and black and is currently clad in white paint (see image which dates from 1998). The sails which had been retained when the mill was converted to a residence deteriorated over the years and following a gale in the 1950s one of the sails blew off. In 1968 the then occupier undertook restoration replacing the original dilapidated sails with dummy ones and spars which were painted red and white. Within the cap, which is original, the supporting rollers, rack, alignment wheels and windshaft have been preserved.Millers
The first miller of the smock mill was Thomas Moreton, born in NuneatonNuneaton
Nuneaton is the largest town in the Borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth and in the English county of Warwickshire.Nuneaton is most famous for its associations with the 19th century author George Eliot, who was born on a farm on the Arbury Estate just outside Nuneaton in 1819 and lived in the town for...
and he was assisted by Charles Pedel a journeyman from Wendover
Wendover
Wendover is a market town that sits at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district...
. By 1871 he had been succeeded by Joseph Salt from Congleton
Congleton
Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Dane, to the west of the Macclesfield Canal and 21 miles south of Manchester. It has a population of 25,750.-History:The first settlements in...
In 1877 the miller was George Wright born in Cholesbury
Cholesbury
Cholesbury is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, on the border with Hertfordshire. It is situated in the Chiltern Hills, about east of Wendover, north of Chesham and from Berkhamsted....
. In 1881 the last miller of this first mill was Harry Wright from Tring
Tring
Tring is a small market town and also a civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire, England. Situated north-west of London and linked to London by the old Roman road of Akeman Street, by the modern A41, by the Grand Union Canal and by rail lines to Euston Station, Tring is now largely a...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. Daniel Dwight is recorded as the first miller who occupied the newly built tower mill. A change of ownership resulted in Thomas Robinson from Moulton, Northamptonshire
Moulton, Northamptonshire
Moulton is a large village in the Daventry district of the county of Northamptonshire in England.-Education:There is one major school in Moulton which serves other surrounding small villages in the area....
who was an experienced in steam powered mills, taking over in 1891. He continued to be the miller until it ceased operation in 1912 at which time he retired to the live at the nearby manor house
Cholesbury Manor House
Cholesbury Manor House which is close to the centre of Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire is where the Lord of the Manor held his Court periodically between 1599 and 1607. The building dates back to the end of the 16th century. It is a Grade II Listed Building....
.
Culture & media
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
, the creator of Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
. The Cannans imnediately set about decorating the mill house property in an avantgarde style and the mill tower into an impromptu studio. Land was acquired at the rear of the property to create a garden. They invited their many friends and acquaintances, many of whom were associated with two artists' groups, the Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...
and the lesser well-known London Group
London Group
The London Group is an artists' exhibiting society based in London, England, founded in 1913, when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists and other independent artists to challenge the domination of the Royal Academy, which had become unadventurous and conservative....
which were both prominent around the time of the First World War. The couple frequently invited so many of their friends to stay that it necessitated renting out neighbouring cottages. D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
and his new wife Freda rented a cottage in nearby Bellingdon and Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield
Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield left for Great Britain in 1908 where she encountered Modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and...
and John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry was an English writer. He was prolific, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime...
who were having an affair at the time lodged, next door to the Cannans, at The Gables before renting a cottage three miles away at The Lee. In December 1914 the group were joined by Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
writer S. S. Koteliansky
S. S. Koteliansky
S.S. Koteliansky, or Samuel Solomonovich Koteliansky, was born in the small Jewish shtetl of Ostropol in the Ukraine, where his first language almost certainly was Yiddish. He was educated and attended university in Russia.-Biography:By 1911, he had moved to London, where he became a great friend...
and the painter Mark Gertler and all spent a raucous Christmas partying in each others houses. These, and related events at Cholesbury were depicted in pictures or formed the basis of several subsequent accounts in letters, memoirs and novels.
Gertler was a lodger at The Gables, between 1915–16, and soon installed himself in the mill's studio. He painted a famous picture of the mill called Gilbert Cannan at his Mill now on show in the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. The picture depicts Cannan outside the Mill with his two dogs. One of these, which is Black and White in colour is believed to depict a dog that had belonged to the Barries. The original inspiration for Nana in the book Peter Pan and the model for the illustrations of the dog in the first edition of Peter Pan was Porthos the Barries' St Bernard. When Porthos subsequently died the Barries replaced him with Luath a lanseer Newfoundland
Newfoundland (dog)
The Newfoundland is a breed of large dog. Newfoundlands can be black, brown, gray, or black and white. They were originally bred and used as a working dog for fishermen in the Dominion of Newfoundland, now part of Canada. They are known for their giant size, tremendous strength, calm dispositions,...
dog whose behaviour was studied by the actor that played Nana in the first stage production of Peter Pan. The costume worn in this production was also black and white. The Mill was dubbed 'a poor man's Garsington' by those who also frequented Garsington Manor
Garsington Manor
Garsington Manor, in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, England, is a Tudor building, best known as the former home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, the Bloomsbury Group socialite...
near Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, the artists' retreat of Lady Ottoline Morrell
Lady Ottoline Morrell
The Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers such as Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, T. S. Eliot and D. H...
also a frequent guest at the mill. Compton Mackenzie
Compton Mackenzie
Sir Compton Mackenzie, OBE was a writer and a Scottish nationalist.-Background:Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, but many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his grandfather Henry Compton, a well-known...
was a regular visitor and based characters in his magnum opus, The Four Winds of Love on the Cannans and Lawrences. Recollections of his first stay at the mill are reprised through his main character's visit to the Rodneys' mill in the fictitious village of Summertune, Essex. Other acquaintances of the Cannans included; writer David Garnett
David Garnett
David Garnett was a British writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life.-Early life:...
, philosopher Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
and historian G. M. Trevelyan
G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan, OM, CBE, FRS, FBA , was a British historian. Trevelyan was the third son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, and great-nephew of Thomas Babington Macaulay, whose staunch liberal Whig principles he espoused in accessible works of literate narrative avoiding a...
. Like Cannan the patron of the arts Eddie Marsh was keen to support up-and-coming artists such as the novelists Maurice Hewlett
Maurice Hewlett
Maurice Henry Hewlett , was an English historical novelist, poet and essayist. He was born at Weybridge, the eldest son of Henry Gay Hewlett, of Shaw Hall, Addington, Kent. He was educated at the London International College, Spring Grove, Isleworth, and was called to the bar in 1891. He gave up...
and Hugh Walpole
Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large...
all three of whom visited. Gertler invited the painter and interior decorator Dora Carrington
Dora Carrington
Dora de Houghton Carrington , known generally as Carrington, was a British painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton Strachey....
with whom he was infatuated only to lose her to the writer Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
who was also a sometime house guest. Gilbert Cannan was a long-time friend of the poet John Drinkwater
John Drinkwater
John Drinkwater was an English poet and dramatist.He was born in Leytonstone, London, and worked as an insurance clerk...
whose poem, September includes a reference to Cholesbury.
The Cannans left the mill in 1916 and in 1917 it was rented by a friend of theirs, the celebrated American actress of the day, Doris Keane
Doris Keane
Doris Keane was an American actress.She was born in the USA but educated largely in Europe.Her first professional role was in Whitewashing Julia in 1903. This was a small role but she went on to play leading roles in The Happy Marriage in 1909 and The Lights o' London in 1911.In 1913, she played...
who used it as a weekend retreat whilst appearing in London theatre productions. In the 1930s the mill was used as an art studio and for classes by the artist Bernard Adams. During the Second World War it was used as a look out post for the Home Guard
Home Guard
-Military:*British Home Guard*Combat Groups of the Working Class *Confederate Home Guard, during the American Civil War*Croatian Home Guard and Imperial Croatian Home Guard*Danish Home Guard...
. During the latter part of the 20th century it was owned by Sir David Hatch
David Hatch
Sir David Hatch was involved in production and management at BBC Radio, where he held many executive positions, including Head of Light Entertainment , Controller of BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 and later Managing Director of BBC Radio.- Education :He attended St John's School, Leatherhead and...
, BBC radio producer and a managing directior of BBC radio.