Halnaker Windmill

Halnaker Windmill
Origin
Mill name Halnaker Mill
Grid reference SU 920 097
Coordinates 50°52′44″N 0°41′38″W / 50.879°N 0.694°W / 50.879; -0.694Coordinates: 50°52′44″N 0°41′38″W / 50.879°N 0.694°W / 50.879; -0.694
Operator(s) West Sussex County Council
Year built Mid-18th century
Information
Purpose Corn mill
Type Tower mill
Storeys Four storeys
No. of sails Four sails
Type of sails Common sails
Windshaft Cast iron (post restoration addition)
Winding Fantail (missing)
No. of pairs of millstones Two pairs

Halnaker Windmill is a tower mill which stands on Halnaker Hill, northeast of Chichester, Sussex, England. The Mill is reached by a public footpath from the north end of Halnaker, where a track follows the line of Stane Street before turning west to the hilltop. There is no machinery in the brick tower, which can be used for shelter.[1]

1695 Map of Sussex by Robert Morden showing a windmill at Halnaker

History

Halnaker Mill was first mentioned in 1540 as belonging to the manor of "Halfnaked". It was built for the Duke of Richmond as the feudal mill of the Goodwood Estate. The surviving mill is thought to date from the 1740s and is known to have been standing c.1780. Halnaker Mill was working until struck by lightning in 1905, damaging the sails and windshaft. The derelict mill was restored in 1934 by Neve's, the Heathfield millwrights as a memorial to the wife of Sir William Bird. Further repair work was done in 1954 by E Hole and Sons, The Burgess Hill millwrights.[2] The mill was again restored in 2004.[3] The mill is owned by West Sussex County Council.[4]

Description

Halnaker Mill is a four-storey tower mill with a sixteen sided beehive cap. The mill was originally hand wound, and later fitted with a fantail, which was not replicated when the mill was restored. The four common sails were originally carried on a wooden windshaft, which was damaged by the 1905 lightning strike. A cast iron windshaft and wooden brake wheel from a wind sawmill at Punnetts Town were fitted. The windshaft is cast in two pieces, bolted together and was too short for Halnaker Mill. Neve's inserted a spacer to lengthen it. The mill worked two pairs of overdrift millstones.[2]

Millers[2]

  • John Hervey 1810
  • Charles Adams 1839–1870
  • G R Watkins 1868–1905

Hilaire Belloc

Halnaker Mill (or Ha'nacker Mill, reflecting the true pronunciation) is the subject of a poem by the English writer Hilaire Belloc in which the collapse of the Mill is used as a metaphor for the tragic decay of the prevailing moral and social system.

  Ha'nacker Mill

  SALLY is gone that was so kindly,
  Sally is gone from Ha'nacker Hill
  And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly;
  And ever since then the clapper is still...
  And the sweeps have fallen from Ha'nacker Mill.

  Ha'nacker Hill is in Desolation:
  Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
  And Spirits that call on a fallen nation,
  Spirits that loved her calling aloud,
  Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.

  Spirits that call and no one answers --
  Ha'nacker's down and England's done.
  Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers,
  And never a ploughman under the Sun:
  Never a ploughman. Never a one.

There are musical settings of this poem by Peter Warlock and Ivor Gurney amongst others.

See also

  • Windmills in Sussex – Wikipedia book

References

  1. ↑ "Halnaker windmill". Sussex Mills Group. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
  2. 1 2 3 Brunnarius, Martin (1979). The Windmills of Sussex. Chichester: Philimore. pp. 78–80, 191. ISBN 0-85033-345-8.
  3. ↑ "Halnaker Windmill, West Sussex - 5th October 2004". Roughwood. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
  4. ↑ "Landmark Windmill Being Restored Again" (Press release). West Sussex County Council. 11 August 2004. Archived from the original on 15 July 2010. Retrieved 6 May 2008.

Further reading

Hemming, Peter (1936). The Windmills in Sussex. London: C W Daniel. Online version

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