STEVINGTON WINDMILL

The Bedfordshire County Council having, as the major part of their contribution to the Festival of Britain, restored the post windmill at Stevington. This village has also historical links with Bunyan, for the Baptist community was founded by him. A Baptist church, now restored, sits on the hill above Stevington on the opposite side of the village to the windmill.

More than eighty parishes in Bedfordshire once possessed windmills, and over 730 years have gone by since the first windmill is known to have been working in Bedfordshire. Time, however, has taken its toll of these old buildings, once so essential to the community, which have added charm to the rural life of the County. Today derelict mills stand battling with the elements, silent memorials to their past, and this was probably the last windmill in the country working with four cloth covered sails. The sails, once missing from this windmill having been re-installed after some years of renovation.

The windmill of early medieval times was to all intents and purposes the post windmill of today. The post windmill is a box-like structure carrying sails and machinery, supported at its very middle on the top of a single upright post. Thus it is beautifully balanced so that it may be turned round the post for the sails to face the wind.

The post is supported by four sloping struts or quarter bars, which transfer the weight on it to two cross-trees placed at right angles below the post. The ends of these rest on brick or stone piers.

The socket into which the post fits is in the crown-tree, a large beam running the full width halfway up the body of the mill, much as the top stroke of a T. By this the whole body of the mill is supported. The mill has to be turned by hand to face the wind by means of a long pole which sticks out behind, called the tail-pole. There are several arrangements of sails and shutters of different periods in various mills. The arrangement of four sails all with cloth covers and no shutters is the earliest known. Indeed an illustration of a windmill on folio 158 of the famous Luttrel Psalter, written about A.D. 1350 (which can be seen in the County Library) shows a post windmill, with cloth-covered sails, tail-pole and ladder, which is, in essentials, a perfect picture of the post mill at Stevington. Little change has been seen in them in the intervening centuries, and the windmill at Stevington, except for slight alterations and addition might be the self same mill of that remote past.

There was a water mill at Stevington in 1264 but the records show that in 1350 the mill was unoccupied because of the Plague.

The early history of Stevington windmill is very vague. It was not shown on the map of Bedfordshire by Thomas Jefferys, surveyed in 1765. The site of the windmill is first mapped in 1826 but there is inscribed on a cross tree in the Round House the date 1770 which probably, if genuine, means that the mill was built between 1765 and 1770.

The windmill stands on a piece of land in Great Field, Stevington, containing 7 acres, 2 roods and 37 perches, which was allotted to Richard Poole under the Inclosure Award of 1807.

It is not known if Stevington had a windmill prior to the existing mill, but a Mr. John Gurney, miller of Stevington, was married in 1730. He, of course, may have worked in a neighbouring parish.

The mill was considerably repaired about 1900 prior to which it was without the Round House which now protects the supporting beams and the four masonry pillars below. The base is of local limestone and measures 23 ft. overall with an interior measurement of 8 ft. 3 ins. It possessed all cloth-covered sails 6 ft. wide with a span of 54 ft. across. These, however, have been reduced in length, as at one time a hollow was sunk into the ground so that the sails might turn freely. They still come within a foot or so of the ground, and a sheep was once killed by them when it came within the danger zone. The base of the main post is unusually massive, being 27 ins. square ' resting on 101 ins. square cross beams. The post tapers to 22 ins. and is circular at the top. It carries an overhead crown beam 20 ins. by 15 ins. and the brake wheel is 8 ft. in diameter.

It worked one pair of 4 ft. 6 ins. stones only, which were fixed on the topmost floor although it is said that originally there was a second pair behind them. Presumably it was when the second pair of stones were taken away that the sails were shortened.

The County Council purchased the mill from the personal representative of the late Mr. George Field of Stevington on July 16th, 1951. Some information as to the names of the millers at Stevington may be of interest. In 1778 a list of apprentices from the Harpur Charity shows William Field as apprentice to Richard Poole of Stevington, baker and miller. The Richard Poole referred to is probably the same person as was allotted the 7 acres in Great Field mentioned above.

In July, 1803, James Proctor, miller, appears in a list which included millers and bakers willing to supply flour for national defence as a result of the threatened French invasion. He was probably only a tenant miller. Other millers taken from directories are 1839-1840 Robert Franklin, 1847 Mrs. Ann Franklin, 1850 Edmund F. Favell, 1853-1864 Edmund Favell, 1869 William Raban, 1877-1894 James Raban, 1898-1917 Alfred Raban and 1917 George Field, who finished milling in 1938-1939.

Time and weather must inevitably effect the deterioration of the mill; a post mill being constructed of timber decomposes more or less at an even rate. Sails, ladder, tail-pole, body-all fade away together until the inevitable crash. Stevington Mill, however, after its careful restoration under the direction of the County Architects has been preserved for future generations. This land mark is viewable from the other side of the Ouse Valley by the sharp eyed.

The interior of the mill can be viewed by borrowing the key, for a hefty deposit, from the village pubs, the Red Lion.& The Ship.