[97906] Quainton Windmill & Cross

The Green, Quainton, Buckinghamshire

 

Market Cross, probably C15.

Grade ll* listed.

A Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Stone. Square plinth on 3 steps. Worn stop-chamfered shaft.

 

Quainton Windmill, 1830-32.

A tower mill with six floors.

Grade ll* listed.

 

Work commenced on the construction of the mill in 1830 but it was temporarily suspended during the winter when the owner - James Anstiss suddenly went to North America. A thatched roof was built in his absence to protect the half-completed tower and upon his return, the building work recommenced.

 

The mill machinery was installed during the following twelve months by William Cooper, millwright of Aylesbury and the mill was completed in 1832.

 

It is unclear when the mill ceased working; the 1891 census records both James and his son Thomas Anstiss as ‘retired millers’ and the mill stood derelict once the fantail blew off in a gale in 1899. It is likely that the mill’s demise was a slow one, consequent in part to changes in farming practice following the land enclosures and a gradual shift to livestock rearing in the locality, together with the growth of large-scale steam mills at the ports. One pair of stones was sold in 1914 and the steam engine and boiler were sold for scrap during the same year; thereafter, the mill progressively fell into dereliction, a process that only came to a halt in 1974 with the formation of the Quainton Windmill Society.

 

The society spent the next eighteen years restoring the mill to the point where a new set of replacement sails were installed by October 1992 and grain was finally milled for the first time in 100 years in February 1997. By 2000, the sails had been removed once more and a number of problems associated with the fantail and the casting that held the luffing gear for rotating the sails into the wind had been discovered. A second set of sails were hoisted into position in October 2004 and milling of flour recommenced in May 2007

Done