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A Brief History of The Old Windmill
The Old Windmill is built on the site of a quarry that was worked by the Davis family during the eighteenth century. The family were stonemasons from Wales who came to the district to do some work and stayed. Much of the original boundary wall from this period, consisting of large vertical stones, still exists. The sandstone quarried from the site was used for local house building, church renovations, and to build the church at Abberton, a nearby village. The quarry was kept dry by pumping from a deep sump and the water supply came from an even deeper well.
The windmill is not shown on maps produced by Taylor in 1800, Greenwood in 1821, or the early Ordanance Survey map of 1834. It is thought that the mill was built during the reign of Queen Victoria, in about 1840, using stone from the site. It was one of about forty windmills that existed in Worcestershire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was a tower mill with a cap that supported four cloth-covered sails, a wind shaft and gears. These connected to under-driven grinding stones that produced the flour. The cap was rotated by hand-operated winding gear to face the wind.
The windmill went out of use in the late 1860s, perhaps as a result of competition with other local mills. Then, during a violent storm on Trinity Sunday 1872, the sails were blown off, making its working life relatively short. The sandstone rock beneath the tower was later excavated to a depth of 12 feet to house an engine that drove the mill once more. This created what is now an interesting lower ground room with walls, which were once blackened, hewn from the solid rock.
One of the Davis family, Arthur Davis, was born on the 24 August 1830. His Last Will and Testament, dating from his death on the 10 August 1883, valued the estate at £597s3d3. He left the quarry, workshops, cottages and land between his son Abel William and his daughter Ellen Ann, who was a spinster. After Arthur's death, however, all work stopped on the quarry. The Inland Revenue Account for the succession duty on the property, paid by his son Abel, amounted to £14s11d8.
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Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the cap, which had been left in
place without the sails, was replaced with an upper floor to make a
castellated turret. In 1906, a Mr Cox acquired the mill and converted it
into a residence by adding a two-storey wing to the East of the tower.
Those who knew the windmill before the alteration thought it was
"quite hideous" and "dwarfs the tower completely".
Mr PF Taylor rented the quarry from Mr Cox from 1911. Taylor was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1883 and was a monumental stonemason who had been living in the village for ten years. He completed service in the British Army from 1915 to 1919 and then returned to buy the quarry and windmill in 1920. Taylor built an additional single storey extension to the North of the tower in 1937. He also re-opened the quarry for his own use, putting him in the unusual position of living on a working quarry until his retirement in the 1960s. Mr and Mrs Taylor continued to live here with their family until they both died within two days of each other in 1972. |
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Since the Taylors, The Old Windmill has been further extended to make a large house. It was acquired by Sheila and Mike Dale in 1984 and has been their family home since. During this time they have upgraded the residence to make a unique and luxurious home. They have also developed the quarry into a delightful garden that is a haven for wildlife.
More recently, the house and garden were featured in The Daily Express in November 2000, on the Carlton Television series Our House in October 2000 and The Birmingham Post in May 2007.
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A cherished family home
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