Holgate Windmill
Probably the last thing one would expect to see, while taking a Sunday afternoon stroll through a quiet suburb of York, is a working 18th century windmill; but if you visit Holgate, that’s exactly what you may discover. These days the mill towers, incongruous but majestic, over the surrounding housing estate, once more painted its traditional black, with a pristine white cap and five sails spread wide. Not long ago, however, it presented a rather different picture, as Bob Anderton recalls.
“In 2000 my elder daughter came home and said, ‘Dad, there’s bits dropping off the mill.’ She used to play around here with her friends. So I said, ‘show me.’ She’d been standing on the grass just outside and a big lump of render had just fallen down a few feet away from her.”
Considering the obvious safety concerns of living beside a derelict building that was quite literally falling to bits, Bob called the council. Shortly afterwards a large fence was erected around the old mill, and that could well have been the end of a sad story of decline and ruin. But it wasn’t.
Bob Anderton
The Holgate Windmill Preservation Society was brought together by Christine Branwell – following a Millennium Pledge – and held its first meeting, in November 2001. It was attended by seventy people, mostly local residents determined to do something about the state of the crumbling mill.
Richie Green was at that first meeting. “The aim of the society was to provide flour from wind power,” he tells me. “If we’d known then how difficult it was going to be, some probably would have run for cover.” But they didn’t. “We were very lucky to have the group we had,” he says. “We had an architect, a graphic designer, a Quaker, me as an ex engineer. […] Most of us are still here. Some of us have been working as volunteers on this windmill for seventeen years.”
Richie Green
Holgate Windmill Preservation Society recently received the Queen’s Award for voluntary service, one of only five groups to do so in Yorkshire.
It’s not hard to understand how volunteers come to be so committed and passionate about the mill. Even perched on a small roundabout, surrounded by urban sprawl, the building is imposing in the way that certain old sailing ships are imposing. In 2012 Holgate Windmill was justifiably named best roundabout in Britain.
Artwork on the way to Holgate Windmill
I asked Bob and Richie how it felt after all those years of hard toil and fundraising, to finally have the mill working again.
“It was a very emotional moment,” Bob tells me. “To stand here and hear it rumbling, and the stones go round, and the sails go round. It was fantastic really. It was a dream come true.”
“From the very beginning we realised we must aim for longevity for this mill,” Richie says. “Obviously, when we milled flour for the first time it was great, we really enjoyed it, but we realised there was a lot more to do, and there’s still more to do now.”
So, what of the future for the only surviving double-shuttered, five sail windmill in the world?
Richie looks thoughtful. “She’s an old lady, we don’t want her to be worked to death, so we produce a ton of flour every three to four months, and small local businesses take our flour, as well as selling it in the mill.”
“There were twelve to fifteen thousand mills in this country at one time. We’ve now got about one hundred and fifty-five reasonably working, and only about thirty-five producing flour. It’s a bit of a massive reduction.”
With closing time nearing, I asked Bob in what way he felt having a working windmill had enhanced Holgate?
“I often hear people say it’s iconic,” he says, with a hint of pride. “It’s put Holgate back on the map. From being a fairly ordinary suburb of York, it now has something that makes people say, ‘Oh yeah, Holgate. That’s where the windmill is.'”
Holgate Windmill