Heckington windmill

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Heckington windmill

Heckington windmill with eight blades

Heckington windmill with eight blades

Location and history
Heckington windmill (England)
Heckington windmill
Coordinates 52 ° 58 '37 "  N , 0 ° 17' 42"  W Coordinates: 52 ° 58 '37 "  N , 0 ° 17' 42"  W.
Location Heckington , Lincolnshire
Built 1830; 1892 repair, eight wings
Shut down 1946-1986
Status renovated and windmilled
technology
use Grain mill and visits
Grinder 4 (5)
drive Wind, electric motor
Windmill type Tower windmill
Wing type Venetian blinds with internal adjustment
Number of wings 8th
Tracking Compass rose

The windmill Heckington ( Engl. Heckington Windmill ) is a windmill based in Heckington , England . It is England's only remaining tower gallery Dutch windmill with eight patent blades. Because of its proximity to the Heckington train station, it is also known as Bahnhofsmühle ( Station Mill ). Another name is Pocklingtonsche Mühle (English Pocklington's Mill ) after its last owner, John Pocklington.

history

In 1830 the windmill was built by Gainsborougher mill builder Edward Ingeldew for Michael Hare, its first owner and miller. Hare died in 1834, and the mill was then run by the Sleighton and Joseph Nash brothers, 'Joseph Nash held it until it was shut down after severe storm damage in 1890.

In 1891 the miller John Pocklington acquired the mill ruin, the cap with the five-fold wing cross, the compass rose and parts of the upper mill mechanics (comb wheel, vertical shaft with top bunker) had been completely destroyed by a storm. A lightning bolt had destroyed the compass rose, so that the mill cap only rotated uncontrollably and the wing cross ran the wrong way around and tore off the mill tower with the entire cap and parts of the wall edge and shattered. John Pocklington already owned the complete mill cap with eight vane cross, vane shaft and mill mechanics of the then 78-year-old Tuxford's Windmill, owned by the Tuxford family of mills from the Skirbeck district of Boston, which he had bought for £ 72. Since he had to remove the complete mill mechanics from the Tuxford Mill property as a condition of purchase and urgently needed a place for the parts acquired in this way, the mill stump in Heckington came in very handy for him. In the spring of 1892 the now 62-year-old mill in Heckington was able to wind and grind again after almost a year of construction (restoration of the damaged mill tower, installation of the cap including wing shaft, blades, compass rose and mechanics) with the support of the local mill builder John Hodgson. Pocklington, an extraordinarily busy man, added two additional grinding aisles (in the 2nd and lowest floor) and a circular saw in a shed attached to the mill. He sold various types of flour, bakery products, bakery products and fodder along with Sägeaufträgen and led the large mill successfully until his death in 1941. According to him, the mill was called since that time until today also Pocklingtonsche mill (Engl. Pocklington's Mill ). The old company sign is still attached today.

In 1946 the grinding operation was stopped, the blind slats (English called shutters , in Lincolnshire called shades ) were expanded, and the imposing structure began to fall into disrepair. In 1953 the county government of Kesteven ("Kesteven County Council") bought the mill in order to preserve the unique structure from final decay and to keep it as a landmark. Various restoration work was carried out by the mill builder Richard Thompson & Son of Alford, England's only remaining mill builder dynasty from the 19th century, including the installation of four blades of two disused windmills (Old Bolingbroke and Wainfleet St. Mary) from East Lindsey and a new one Compass rose. They had to be repaired after a lightning strike in 1972. In 1986, the mill was due to administrative reform in the possession of the county government of Lincolnshire ( "Lincolnshire County Council"). 192 new slats (blinds, 24 per wing) and four more wings together with controls were installed by the Friends of Heckington Mill, and ground again for the first time in 40 years. After a further renovation in 2004, the mill has been in operation again and open to visitors since then. The current millers since 2004 are Martin Hanson and George Pacey.

description

The Heckington windmill was built as a five-bladed, slim conical brick tower windmill with six floors or floors: entrance floor, flour floor, stone or gallery floor, lower grain floor, upper grain floor or lifting floor (contained both the bag elevator and chutes for the grain to be ground), dust - or Kappboden (ground floor, meal floor, stone floor, lower bin floor, upper bin floor / hoist floor, dust floor) and Sutton patent wings, a type of venetian blind with a wedge-shaped cross-section. The outer wall was given a plaster with a sealing black bitumen layer to prevent the ingress of water - a construction method particularly widespread in Lincolnshire. A white onion hood with codend tracking , reel and endless chain closed the mill. It had three grinding courses in the third tray and space for a fourth. After 60 years of work, the mill was in urgent need of renovation. During this time a large compass rose was installed instead of the codend .

After the storm damage, which largely ruined the mill, the battered mill stump received the snow-white onion hood (consisting of whitewashed, tarred canvas over wooden frames, timbers and scrollwork after repairs by its new owner John Pocklington and John Hodgson, a local mill builder, from 1891 to 1892 Tower ball), the wing cross with eight louvre blades ( Lincolnshire Cross after John Smeaton with eight rods) and the eight-winged wind rose with a diameter of more than 3.5 m. The cap comes from the decommissioned Tuxford Windmill ( Tuxford's Mill ) in Skirbeck, Boston, Lincolnshire, which was built in 1813 by the Tuxford family of mill builders for demonstration purposes , plus a grinder extended by two more grinding stages and a switchable circular saw in an outbuilding for the production of Coffin lids. The large inner gear parts (vertical shaft, comb wheel, upper bunker) are made of steel or have steel teeth ("combs") instead of wooden ones. Since the Tuxford mill, for which the cap was originally designed, had a further tower end, there is a larger gap between the mill cap edge and the outer wall of the tower. Today four grinding courses are ready for use. The saw is no longer there. As a special feature of Holländermühlen, this mill has a circumferential, tensionable steel cable that connects the wing tips to prevent the wing from warping, a construction measure that may be unnecessary with this type of wing. The three original grinding courses (two sandstone grinding courses and one quartzite grinding course ) on the grinding floor (3rd floor) are available and ready for use, plus the fourth grinding course in the 2nd floor. Due to the double sail area of ​​comparable four-winged mills, the Heckington windmill is able to drive its four grinding cycles even in lower winds when other mills are at a standstill.

The windmill at Heckington train station with eight louvre blades instead of four is the only remaining Dutch tower windmill of its kind, of which there were originally around seven in England, four of which are in Lincolnshire alone (Tuxford Mill (Skirbeck, Boston), Holbeach windmill ( South Holland ), Market Rasen windmill ( West Lindsey ), later the Heckington windmill ( North Kesteven )). The highest of these eight-wing windmills was the Leachsche mill ( Leach's Mill ) with nine floors in Wisbech , Cambridgeshire ., Followed by the 1821 achtbödigen built Eye Green Tower Mill ( Eye Green Tower mill ) in Eye Green , Cambridgeshire, after storm damage and rotting today on three storeys reduced residential building.

Leach's eight-bladed mill before 1895

Sailing windmills with round rods and triangular sails as sail pole blades, as they are often found in the Mediterranean area, have up to twelve / fourteen "blades", but are a different type of windmill. There are also eight-bladed coker windmills with paddle-like short blades in Finland .

The just 9.1 m high Boyds Windmill or Wind Grist Mill (Boyd's Windmill, Boyd's Wind Grist Mill) with a steep eight-sided wooden frame tower, erected in the Paradis Valley Park in Middletown , Rhode Island (Paradise Valley Park, Prospect Ave., Middletown, Rhode Island), Erected in Portsmouth, Rhode Island in 1810 , it also has eight wings (initially four) of the sail gate type, but is no longer grindable. After removing the eight wings in 1916, installing the gas drive and later decommissioning it after 1990, it was restored and set up in the aforementioned park.

Mill data

  • Canopy height: 23 m (75 ft)
  • Total height: 30.48 m (100 ft)
  • Tower height: 18.3 m (60 ft)
  • Mill wing span: 21.4 m (70 ft)
  • Weight of the eight-fold wing cross: 5 t
  • Base inside width: 8.5 m (28 ft)
  • Grinds: z. Currently 4, max. 5
  • Floors: 6

See also

literature

  • E. Mitford Abrahams: Collection of Photographs of Mills (1927-1938) . John Rylands University Library, Manchester
  • Peter CJ Dolman: Lincolnshire Windmills - A Contemporary Survey . Lincolnshire County Council, Recreations Services-Museums, Lincoln, 1986; ISBN 0-86111-126-5

Web links

Commons : Heckington Windmill  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. There is no indication whether the mill used to be called Haremühle ( Hare's Mill ) or Nashmühle ( Nash's Mill ).
  2. For comparison: a complete tower windmill cost around £ 1,800 - £ 2,000 around 1820.
  3. picture of Alford Mill, Lincolnshire; This is what the Heckington windmill looked like until 1890.
  4. Not to be confused with the four-wing, according to the market spots Tuxford in Nottinghamshire designated Tuxford mill (engl. Tuxford Mill ).
  5. picture of Leach's mill
  6. The Windmills in Eye Green ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )