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.

The Hayes Farm windmill

My eagle-eyed map-loving windmill-fan friend Jill can spot a windmill symbol on a map a mile away. Unfortunately, I didn’t show her the OS map until after our walk. Fortunately, the location of this particular windmill symbol is just a short distance from one of my regular walking routes so I added it on to my next visit. 

Fortunately, too, Jill didn’t miss much, as little can now be seen of the windmill, fenced off as it is behind high concrete posts strung with teal-plastic-covered wire netting and untended trees and shrubs. Though considered important enough to be Grade II listed and included on the Vale of Glamorgan’s own report of ‘County Treasures’, this important piece of Glamorgan’s industrial heritage has been badly neglected and is crumbling away.

The British Listed Buildings websiteprovides the following history of the windmill:

Hayes Farm was a model farm built 1813 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars by Evan Thomas of Llwynmadog Estate, Brecknockshire (1778-1832). Thomas bought the manor of Sully in 1812 and modernised the agriculture of the area according to best practice of the period. He brought together 7 farms into 2 model complexes managed by bailiffs: Cog Farm and Hayes Farm. The farmers were re-housed, field sizes increased, and facilities improved. Unusually for farms of the day, Hayes and possibly Cog had their own windmills to grind corn. Edward Harrie and William Stoddard are recorded as millers from 1821-28. The mill was of the revolving cap type and was later enhanced by horse walk and gearing, an oil engine installed c1902. The surrounding farm land was sold for industrial development in 1947 and the farm closed in 1950s.

And here is their description of the treasures of stone and metal, hidden away behind all that greenery:

Exterior

A stone tower mill with attached granary and barn. The windmill tower is of coursed rubble limestone, with patches of render; the cap is missing. There are iron joists of a former gantry at 2 thirds height, with a blocked access on the north side. Two windows, one above the other, are below this on the west side, and one and a doorway on the east. On the south, a door opens at first floor level into the granary.

The granary and barn form a long rectangular range, now roofless, of rubble stone with red brick dressings, mostly cambered-arched openings. Tall round -headed threshing arches opposite one another towards the centre. The building formerly had 2 floors, with a granary to the west and barn to the east. Lower level extensions were at each end, with cartsheds at right angles. Ruins of other buildings stand to the south and west, single storey range to W. The farmhouse is on the opposite side of Hayes Road.

Interior

Inside the tower the hurst frame retains 2 pairs of stones and stone nuts. The drive post is complete with wallower and spur wheel. Another drive passes through the wall.

Image grabbed from Google Earth

The Hayes Farm windmill is the only windmill in south Wales where there are still parts of the original machinery in situ yet, if nothing is done to maintain and conserve it, that machinery may soon be covered by the mill's collapsed rubble. Such a shame!