Portland : two windmills

On the Isle of Portland you will find the only remains of old windmills in the whole of the county of Dorset and, sadly, there’s not much left of them to see.

In such a wild and windy location, it’s no surprise that, in medieval times, the local farmers used windmills to have their grain milled in to flour. A signboard near one of the stone towers explains:

The windmills were principally sited to utilise the open, windy landscape of the island and to provide a grain grinding facility for the local community.
Although the land was farmed by many individuals, the crop grown in a particular area was a common one and meant that harvesting took place all at one time.
The Islanders would bring their own grain to be milled as they wanted to use it. The miller would take some of the flour for his pay.

The windmill remains consist of two stone towers standing around 135 metres apart, now labelled the North windmill and the South windmill – I’m sure they once had different names, perhaps those of their owners or millers. According to the Historic England website, both towers are thought to date from the 17th century. The towers were constructed of rough coursed rubble, with walls approximately 650mm thick, and have a diameter of about 4 metres. The North windmill is now 5.5 metres tall and the South 7 metres.

The signboard gives a couple of interesting facts about the mills:

North windmill ... The timber wind-shaft was removed from the tower in 1983 after it became unsafe and has been stored in the garden of the Portland museum ever since.
South windmill ... This windmill incorporated an inserted concrete floor slab on corrugated shuttering probably from World War Two.

But, if you’re keen to read a more thorough history of the mills, the Encyclopedia of Portland History has a wonderfully informative entry here.

Rogiet windmill

What a delight it was to discover this new windmill earlier this week. That’s new, as in the first time I’d seen it or even knew of its presence, not new as in newly constructed, as you can tell immediately from its appearance. I was walking from Severn Tunnel Junction train station in Rogiet, in the nearby county of Gwent, to Slade Wood for a day’s butterflying with my friend Sharon when this structure appeared on the hillside in front of me.

Unfortunately, I’ve found very little information about the former windmill – what I list here has come almost entirely from the British Listed Buildings (BLB) website. This now ruined structure was once a tower-type windmill, most probably used for grinding corn into flour. The BLB lists a reference to the mill having been found in a lease document dating from 1526, so the mill is assumed to have been built around 1500. The lease or deed, between the parties Gamage (the lord of the manor), Lovelye and Mylward, relating to a ‘windmill and appurtenances’, is held at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, so I haven’t been able to examine its content.

The tower is shown as a round building on a survey document dated 1746, is labelled ‘old mill’ on an Ordnance Survey map of 1830, and is shown as a dot on ‘Windmill tump’ on the 1881-82 Monmouthshire county OS map. The BLB website describes the structure as follows:

Exterior:
Of small scale rubble. Walls c 1m thick taper slightly and are offset below present wall head. Three original openings, possibly 4.
Former narrow stairs to upper floor S.
Doorway SW with rubble jambs, possibly a window above it.
Opposite is a second opening probably a window with doorway above; heads of both broken.
Intact slit window upper floor S.

Interior:
3 tiers of beam slots. Slots also indicate stairs from ground to first floor and plaster line indicates former continuation to top floor.
Diameter suggests one pair of millstones.

Next time I visit this area, I’ll try to get better photos of the ruin and will update this post with them, and any additional information I manage to find.

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22 July, and a return visit to Rogiet. You can get quite close to the windmill by walking up the lane adjacent to its field, so here are a few more photos. The structure is in a sorry state of repair unfortunately.