It’s a mill wind as sails turn again (From York Press)

It’s a mill wind as sails turn again

11:43am Monday 23rd January 2012 in Features

Ten years of hard graft has finally paid off as York’s only surviving windmill is about to grind corn again for the first time in eight decades. MATT CLARK and CHARLOTTE CHAPMAN went along to discover its story.

TRAFFIC in Poppleton Road is heavier than usual. It is stop-start as far as the city centre and backing up to the ring road. But motorists stuck in a queue at least have some consolation. For opposite the business park there is a sight to marvel at.

For the first time in 80 years, Holgate Windmill is again resplendent with sails soaring high into the sky. By Easter, they will be powering grindstones to turn wheat into flour.

They’ve also had a bit of traffic in Windmill Rise lately. The last was a giant low loader carrying a cargo of large white rectangles that must have had motorists in York baffled.

Look up and all is revealed.

Holgate Mill cost about £500,000 to restore and many doubted it could be saved. Holgate Windmill Preservation Society chairman Bob Anderton always kept the faith, though. Now, he says the five-sail mill is unique in Britain.

“When the sails went up it was an overwhelming feeling,” says Bob. “It looks like a windmill again.

“Someone said to me the other day, ‘Doesn’t it look fantastic, I wasn’t sure, but now I can see your vision’. That’s marvellous to hear.”

The original sails were fitted with the splendidly named Captain Hooper’s Patent Roller Reefing Sails, which were made of short lengths of canvas on individual rollers. The shutters were linked by bars which ran the length of each sail and joined in the centre of the assembly, called the Spider.

The new ones pivot to 90 degrees, says Bob. “Probably the best way to describe the difference is that Hooper’s were like a roller blind, these are more like a Venetian blind.” John Speed’s 17th century map of York showed the city surrounded by windmills, but Holgate Mill is the last to survive. It was built in 1770 and continued to grind corn until the 1930s, when it fell into disrepair.

A couple of attempts to revive it failed until the preservation society began restoration ten years ago. The society soon realised it would cost a serious amount of money.

Bob says City of York Council has been very supportive and the whole project has been a bit of a partnership. When the council gave planning consent and the go-ahead for the society to lease the mill, Bob could then apply for 90 per cent of the restoration cost from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

But July 2005 was a disappointing one.

“We had submitted our initial proposals to the Heritage Lottery Fund but, perhaps naively, we thought it was a case of going to them, getting the money and getting on with the work.”

It wasn’t, but two years later a different picture emerged.

“We had an article in The Press and that night someone rang me offering £20,000 because he liked what he had read.

“I nearly dropped the phone. My wife asked if I was sure he said thousands and I began to doubt what I’d heard. Anyway, when the cheque arrived it had the right number of noughts.”

Bob says that donation was the catalyst to do a proper job on the mill.

Donations continued with £20,000 from York Conservation Trust and HLF funding of £50,000 to restore the ground floor.

However, the major source of funds was landfill tax, where community projects near a tip are given grants. Bob says it was vital.

Work moved on apace. The curb ring was installed, walls were rendered, windows and doors replaced.

Then the cap was finally put in place. When it went up, there was so much interest that the society quickly sold out of sponsorships for all 200 sail shutters and eight fantail blades.

The icing on the cake came last November when the society won £46,500 for new sails through the TV show, People’s Millions.

Not everything cost a small fortune though. The winnower which will clean the grain before milling looks as though it has always been here.

Not a bit of it says Bob; it cost £25 on eBay.

High on the fourth floor, millwright Tom Davies is checking the brake wheel.

“I must admit I gave a big cheer when the sails went up,” he says.

“I measured them six times but it’s a bit of a guessing game really.”

It was also a poignant task because Tom’s father restored the mill half a century ago.

“It’s quite something to be stood where he was all those years ago. It’s a moving feeling really; one that provokes thoughts beyond belief.”

There were no plans. Tom keeps them in his head and he also built the cap’s frame in a rather unusual way.

“I took a template to the timber yard looking for bent trees that would match. Nobody else wants them, but it’s better than steaming the wood, because you keep the natural strength and grain.”

The sails are controlled by an endless chain. Pulling it closes the shutters to “catch the wind”. As it gets up, the shutters open semi-automatically.

Weights are hung from the chain to regulate the air flow through the shutters and give an even speed for millers to grind.

Holgate is a tower mill, which means it has a rigid structure, with the cap rotating by a fantail on the opposite side to the sails. It acts like an autopilot and continuously keeps the sails facing into the wind.

The mill has four pairs of grindstones. Three are French Burrs, made of quartz, the other pair is Peak Stone from Derbyshire and all the supporting woodwork has been built and installed by the society’s millwrights.

“Now we are looking forward to inviting millers to come and teach us how to make flour,” says Bob.

Eventually, he hopes this will be on a commercial scale. Bob reckons on a good day the windmill could grind 750 bags. Everything is ready to go, but after all the work the grindstones need a clean. Once done, they will be back in action for the first time in eight decades.

“We placed a time capsule inside the ball finial on the top of the mill,” says Bob. “This is a time-honoured tradition in milling circles and it will be next seen by a future generation of cap restorers.

“Hopefully, they won’t be needed for a long time.”

George Ward and his sons ran Holgate Mill until 1851. During that decade, it changed hands three times.

An auction bill of 1858 described the mill as being “substantial and commodious on one of the highest eminences in the vicinity of York”. At the time, it stood amid fields and cottage gardens and came with an acre of paddock.

After a period of stability, January 1930 saw the beginning of the end. Storms had battered the sails and on close examination they were found to be dangerous. They were taken down, leaving only the struts.

Milling continued though, by installing an electric motor and hopes of restoration rose when a group of railwaymen suggested they set up a shilling fund to help meet the cost. But it came to nothing and the mill closed.

The last owner was Eliza Gutch, who in 1938 offered the mill to York Corporation for £100, on the understanding that it would be preserved.

In committee, Coun Walker said he would do all in his power to get the last mill of its kind in York for the city. Alderman Morrell said “It would be a thousand pities if it was destroyed.”

But Coun Hatfield took a different view, saying the money could be better spent preserving things of beauty. “There was no beauty in this windmill with five sticks in the air,” he said.

By June, the corporation agreed to take it on and work soon began, including a new cap being fitted. But war broke out when the sails were due to be replaced and restoration work was put on permanent hold.

The Yorkshire Evening Press reported a “brief ray of hope” a year later when a pair of artists had the notion of converting the mill into a dream home. Sadly, the article goes on to say that a last-minute change of plan left the mill “doomed to dust and scuttling mice”.

It wasn’t until Bob Anderton and his preservation society came along that those days of dust and scuttling mice came to an end.

York has its windmill back.

Open weekends

Holgate Windmill Open Weekends will be announced at the end of the month. The mill will reopen to visitors in April. Visits can also be prearranged by small groups and schools by phoning Bob Anderton 01904 795851.

A charge will be made for each group visit, equal to that of public open days, to cover insurance and running costs.

You can join the preservation society for £5 a year as an individual or £8 for a year’s household membership. All profits go towards the mill restoration holgatewindmill.org