Wray Common Mill is a grade II* listed tower mill

Tower mill

A tower mill is a type of windmill which consists of a brick or stone tower, on top of which sits a roof or cap which can be turned to bring the sails into the wind....

 at Reigate

Reigate

Reigate is a historic market town in Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs, and in the London commuter belt. It is one of the main constituents of the Borough of Reigate and Banstead...

, 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 converted to residential use.

History

Wray Common Mill was built in 1824. The mill was worked by wind until 1895 when an accident resulted in a broken sail. The mill had a steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

, later replaced by an oil engine, as auxiliary power. The shutters were removed from the sails c.1900. The condition of the sails rapidly deteriorated and a new set was fitted in 1928 by Thomas Hunt, the Soham

Soham

Soham is a small town in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It lies just off the A142 between Ely and Newmarket . Its population is 9,102 , and it is within the district of East Cambridgeshire.-Archaeology:...

 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...

. At this time all machinery except the Windshaft and Brake Wheel was removed.

Residential Use

Wray Common Mill was converted into residential accommodation in 1967. The mill fell into a state of disrepair in the late 1990s, and a new owner started restoration in 2004. It now features four bedrooms, a utility/cloakroom, a kitchen/dining room, reception, bathroom, shower room, wine cellar and a garden with a terrace. It was listed for sale on UK property website Primelocation in 2007.

Restoration

The cap was removed on 26 August 2004. A new cap was constructed, the building stripped to a bare shell and defects made good, the old tar was stripped, and a new coat applied to the exterior of the tower. The new cap was craned onto the mill in 2005. An application for Listed Building permission to replace the sails was made in 2006. The sails were fitted in December 2007, the restoration of the mill's external appearance to more closely match the mill in its working days was done in consulation of Bonwick Milling Heritage Consultancy. In a break with tradition, a modern method of producing laminated timber beams was used in making the sails. As a result of the work, Wray Common Mill was removed from the Buildings at Risk Register in 2006.

Description

Wray Common Mill is a five storey brick tower mill with an ogee cap with a gallery. It has four double Patent sails carried on a cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 windshaft. The cap is winded by a fantail. The cast iron Brake Wheel alone remains of the machinery, although it is known that the millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s were driven overdrift. The tower is 20 feet (6.1 m) diameter at the base and 12 feet (3.66 m) diameter at the curb, and 45 feet (13.72 m) high to the curb.

Millers

• Joseph Coulstock 1824–1832
• Edward LArmer c1850
• Robert Budgen 1855–1857
• Joseph Henry Cooke 1874
• Mrs M Cooke 1895

References for above:-