Buckland Windmill is a grade II listed smock mill

Smock mill

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 at Buckland

Buckland, Surrey

Buckland is a village and civil parish in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England. The village is situated between Dorking and Reigate. The civil parish of Buckland covers 515 hectares and is bordered by the North Downs escarpment in the north. The area contains a number of clay pits.Buckland...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 which has been restored to working order. It is the only surviving wind saw mill in the United Kingdom.

History

Buckland Windmill was built by William Cooper, the Henfield

Henfield

Henfield is a large village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies south of London, northwest of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester at the road junction of the A281 and A2037. The parish has a land area of . In the 2001 census 5,012...

 millwright

Millwright

A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...

, sometime in the 1860s or 1870s. It stands in the grounds of a house that was lived in by the carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

s of the Buckland Court Estate. The windmill was discovered in 1995, with a mature yew

Taxus

Taxus is a genus of yews, small coniferous trees or shrubs in the yew family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 1-40 m, with trunk diameters of up to 4 m...

 tree standing very close to it. When the owners contacted the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was founded by William Morris, Philip Webb and J.J.Stevenson, and other notable members of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, in 1877, to oppose what they saw as the insensitive renovation of ancient buildings then occurring in Victorian...

 for advice, they were surprised to find that it existed, because the mill had been missed by Ken Farries and Martin Mason, and omitted from their comprehensive work on windmills in the county.

Restoration

The restoration of the mill took place over a number of years, starting in 1995-97 when the building was repaired and made weatherproof. In 1999-2001 the cap frame was constructed and the sails refitted. From 2003, the mill was put into working order. The work was funded by grants from the BAA (Environmental Grants Scheme), at Gatwick, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the government department responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the United Kingdom...

(Rural Enterprise Scheme), Mole Valley District Council and Surrey Historic Buildings Trust. The millwrights were Tony Hole, of Dorothea Restorations and Vincent Pargeter, who was responsible for the sails. The restored mill turned by wind for the first time in February 2004.

Awards

The restoration of the mill was recognised by awards from the Surrey Historic Buildings Trust in March 2004 and the Surrey Industrial History Group in July 2004.

Description

Buckland Windmill is a small circular smock mill built on a two storey building. It has a small cap and is powered by four Patent sails. The cap is winded by a fantail.

External links

• Windmill World webpage on Buckland mill.