Chesterton Windmill
| Chesterton Windmill | |
|---|---|
Chesterton Windmill in Warwickshire
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| Origin | |
| Mill name | Chesterton Windmill |
| Mill location | Chesterton, Warwickshire, England, UK |
| Grid reference | SP 347 593 |
| Coordinates | 52°13′52″N 1°29′24″W / 52.231°N 1.49°WCoordinates: 52°13′52″N 1°29′24″W / 52.231°N 1.49°W |
| Year built | 1632 |
| Information | |
| Purpose | Corn mill |
| Type | Tower mill |
| Storeys | Three storeys (including the open lower storey) |
| No. of sails | Four sails |
| Type of sails | Common sails |
| Windshaft | Cast iron |
| Winding | Internal hand winch |
| No. of pairs of millstones | Two pairs |
Chesterton Windmill is a 17th-century cylindric stone tower windmill with an arched base, located outside the village of Chesterton, Warwickshire. It is a Grade I listed building and a striking landmark in South-East Warwickshire.
The windmill is one of Warwickshire's most famous landmarks. It stands on a hilltop overlooking the village of Chesterton for nearly 350 years. It is near the Roman Fosse Way and about five miles (8 km) south-east of Warwick. It was built around 1632-1633, probably by Sir Edward Peyto, who was Lord of the Chesterton Manor House. At this time John Stone, a pupil of Inigo Jones, was in Chesterton designing the new Manor House and he probably helped with the windmill as well. Sir Edward was a mathematician and astrologer and probably his own architect to the windmill, but although claims have been made that the tower was originally built as an observatory, the estate accounts now at Warwick Record Office show that it has always been a windmill, making it the earliest tower mill in England to retain any of its working parts.
It is built of hard local limestone, with sandstone detailing, on a shallow platform of 71 feet 9 inches (21.87 m) in diameter. The mill tower with a cap height of 36 feet (11 m), unique worldwide in structure and mechanics, is supported on six semicircular arches, on piers, the outer faces of which are arcs of circles radiating from a common centre. A sandstone string course surmounts the six arches and runs round the tower, below the windows. There are four windows in the tower, two small and two much larger with stone mullioned windows. A three-light window set in the roof on the opposite side to the sails, has a small plaque above it with the letters "E. P. 1632".
Beside the open ground floor within the arches there are two more floors to the mill, the first, lower, or stone floor 15-foot (4.6 m) above ground level, housing millstones, great spur wheel, hurst frame, sack hoist rope passing through the floor trap, and the upper, second, or hoist floor with brake wheel, main gearing (wallover), sack hoist pulley, and parts of the winding winch. The windshaft and the main parts of the winding system including the wind direction indicator is installed within the cap. The space inside the arches, until 1930, used to have a wooden structure to store the grain, and an open timber staircase to reach the milling floors. This structure was removed to prevent vandalism. The cap of the mill is a shallow dome which used to be covered with lead sheet, but also because of vandalism is now covered with aluminium. Between the cap and the top of the wall is a system of rollers running in a track plate allowing the cap to be rotated easily. There is a wind direction indicator on the roof which is continued into the interior, and a small repeat indicator at its lower end, so that the miller could set the mill without leaving his work. The lattice-type-sails are 60 feet (18 m) span counter clock-wise rotation (seen from outside the mill; most of all windmills worldwide rotate clockwise seen from inside the mill - from "under the wind") and with 450 sq ft (42 m2) of canvas. The arched tower covers a very small diameter of 22 feet 9 inches (6.93 m) and it has an unusual "in cap" winding gear for an English windmill, the cap being winded by a hand operated winch having spur and worm gears.
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