A super looking windmill in Jakobsdorf (Jakubkowice), Silesia, c.1930. Click to enlarge image.
Today’s scan from our picture archive dates back to 1930 and features a windmill and farmworkers in the village of Jakobsdorf, in what was Silesia, Germany. In 1945, Jakobsdorf, was renamed Jakubkowice and became part of Poland. Alas, the windmill itself has long since disappeared.
Part of a larger photograph of a mill damaged during fighting in the First World War. Click to enlarge.
This month’s image from our windmill archive is of a war-damaged windmill near Calais in northern France. This mill was photographed in 1916.
A lovely old picture postcard of the Alms houses and Windmill in Thaxted, Essex, c.1912.
This is the so-called John Webb’s Windmill, which was built in 1804. It has been restored and is open to the public on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and on Bank Holidays, from Easter to end of September. The mill is currently owned by the local Parish Council and staffed by volunteers.
The low thatched building in the foreground was built as a Priest’s House but converted into an almshouse building in the 18th century. The building on the right was built around 1711 as an almshouse and is still used for that purpose to this very day.
A wonderful photographic (RP) postcard showing the mill in Stone Allerton in a state of disrepair. This mill can be found on the road between Wedmore and Cheddar. Click image to enlarge.
A photograph of what was left of the Weare Tower Mill in Weare / Stone Allerton, Somerset, c.1910. Shortly after this photograph was taken the mill was converted into a private dwelling house and remains such today. Legend tells of a horse rider being thrown from his horse and killed after it was frightened by the whirling sound of the sails. The mill was last worked in 1880.
Compare this with a recent photograph of the same Allerton mill with attached house (taken from the opposite direction).
Perhaps the most famous miller is Windy Miller from the late 1960s children’s television, Camberwick Green. Not so long ago Windy popped up in a new advertisement for Quaker Oats. Here he is in one of what I think were four different versions. The advert finishes with Windy getting in a sports car and putting his arm around Molly, the barmaid from the Feathers pub!
See our previous post on Windy Miller!
An old image of the Old Windmill, Kerridge, Cheshire, as used on a picture postcard mailed in 1909.
The windmill in Orsett, Essex, c.1971.
A scan of an old photograph of the derelict mill in Orsett, Essex, England, as it looked in 1971.
An interesting photograph, sent in by Gary Morse of Folkestone, showing some maintenance being done to the sails of the windmill in Stelling Minnis, near Canterbury, Kent. The windmill was built in in 1866 and unusually was in commercial use until the late 1960s. It is now owned by Kent County Council and open to the public every Sunday afternoon between Easter and the end of September each year.
An etching of a Fenland Windmill by the artist Percy Thomas (1846-1922).
The Windmill, Silver Sreet, Edmonton, Middlesex, before the First World War.
A scan of a reproduction postcard featuring Edmonton Windmill, Middlesex around 1914.
Click to see an enlarged version of the image. Loads of great detail!