The smock mill is a type of
windmill
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...
that consists of a sloping, horizontally
weatherboarded,
thatch
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...
ed, or
shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This type of windmill got its name from its resemblance to
smocks worn by
farmers
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...
in an earlier period.
Construction
Smock mills differ from
tower mills, which are usually cylindrical rather than hexagonal or octagonal, and built from brick or stone masonry instead of timber. The majority of smock mills are
octagon
In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon.
A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, w ...
al in plan,
[ with a lesser number ]hexagon
In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexagon
A '' regular hexagon'' has ...
al in plan, such as Killick's Mill, Meopham
Killick's Mill is a Grade II* listed Smock mill in Meopham, Kent, England that was built in 1801 and which has been restored.
History
''Killick's mill'' was built in 1801 by three brothers named Killick from Strood. Unusually, the mill is he ...
. A very small number of smock mills were decagon
In geometry, a decagon (from the Greek δέκα ''déka'' and γωνία ''gonía,'' "ten angles") is a ten-sided polygon or 10-gon.. The total sum of the interior angles of a simple decagon is 1440°.
A self-intersecting ''regular decagon'' i ...
al or dodecagon
In geometry, a dodecagon or 12-gon is any twelve-sided polygon.
Regular dodecagon
A regular dodecagon is a figure with sides of the same length and internal angles of the same size. It has twelve lines of reflective symmetry and rotational s ...
al in plan, an example of the latter being at Wicken, Cambridgeshire.
Distribution
Smock mills exist in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and particularly in England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, where they were common, particularly in the county of Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, where the tallest surviving smock mill in the United Kingdom, Union Mill, can be found at Cranbrook. They reached their heyday in the earlier part of the 19th century, after which the advent of steam power
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tra ...
started the decline of the windmill. The East End of Long Island has the greatest concentration of smock mills in the U.S., with Beebe Windmill
Beebe Windmill is a historic mill located at the southeast corner of Ocean Road and Hildreth Avenue in Bridgehampton, New York. an''Accompanying one photo from 1977''/ref>
History
Beebe windmill was built in 1820 at Sag Harbor for Lester Beebe. A ...
, Hayground Windmill
Hayground Windmill is an historic windmill at Windmill Lane in East Hampton Village, New York. It was moved from Hayground to Pantigo between Two Mile Hollow Beach and Egypt Beach in the 1950s.
Early History
The windmill was built in 1809 and w ...
, Pantigo Windmill
The Pantigo Windmill on James Lane in Easthampton, New York is a smock mill with eight sides, bearing a weathervane on top with 1771 punched through it. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 as a contributi ...
, Gardiner, Hook Windmill
Hook Windmill, also known as Old Hook Mill, is a historic windmill on North Main Street in East Hampton, New York. It was built in 1806 and operated regularly until 1908. One of the most complete of the existing windmills on Long Island
Lo ...
, Gardiner's Island
Gardiner's Island is a small island in the Town of East Hampton, New York, in Eastern Suffolk County. It is located in Gardiner's Bay between the two peninsulas at the east end of Long Island. It is long, wide and has of coastline.
The ...
, Watermill
A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production ...
, National Links, Southampton/Shinnecock (Cottage), Shelter Island, Wainscott Windmill, three replicas, Little East Neck H.D., Corwith and Reform Inn, and three cottages, A.W.B.Wood House & Windmill(Montauk), Edwin DeRose and Quail Hill Farms (Deep Ln).
Britain
Designed by the civil engineer John Smeaton
John Smeaton (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was a British civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton was the fi ...
, Chimney Mill in Spital Tongues, Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
was the first five-sailed smock mill in Britain.[ It was built in 1782 and is the only surviving smock mill in the North East region. However, the sails and original cap are no longer in place.]
The oldest surviving smock mill in England (dated to 1650) is located in Lacey Green, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...
. The hexagonal mill has been restored by the Chiltern Society.
Ireland
St Patrick's Tower in Dublin is believed to have once been the largest smock windmill in Europe.
Massachusetts
There is an operating smock mill on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
. Built in 1746 by Nathan Wilbur, a Nantucket sailor who had spent time in Holland, the " Old Mill" is the oldest functioning mill in the United States. It is the only surviving mill of the four smock mills that once stood on Popsquachet ("windy hill" in the Wampanoag language
The Massachusett dialects, as well as all the Southern New England Algonquian (SNEA) languages, could be dialects of a common SNEA language just as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible languages that essentially exist in a diale ...
) overlooking Nantucket town. Until late in the 19th century, there was a fifth Nantucket mill called "Round-Top Mill" on the site of the present New North Cemetery.
The Old Mill was in a very poor derelict condition when it was sold for twenty dollars in 1828 to Jared Gardner for use as "firewood." Instead of dismantling it, Gardner, a carpenter by trade, restored the mill to working condition making it capable once again of grinding corn. The mill was sold again in 1866 to John Francis Sylvia, a Portuguese miller of Azorean descent, who operated it for many years with his assistant Peter Hoy until it fell into disuse in 1892. In 1897, Miss Caroline French purchased the mill at an auction for $850 and donated it to the Nantucket Historical Association
Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...
(NHA). The NHA restored it in 1937 and continues to maintain it, grind corn and guide tours of the mill during the summer and early autumn.
Another operating smock mill is found in Orleans, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. It was originally erected about 1793 on Kendrick's Hill, on land that later became Orleans. At that time it was known as Elisha Cook's Mill. In 1939, it was moved to Young's hill, in Orleans. It was then known as the Jonathan Young windmill after one of the five owners.
In 1897 Captain Hunt, a wealthy sea captain, bought the mill and had it moved to his estate in Hyannisport. The mill was moved by oxen and then via a barge to its Hyannisport location. Eventually the Gove family bought the Hunt estate, and in 1983 gave the mill to the Orleans Historical Society, who donated it to the town of Orleans.
The windmill was disassembled, restored and reassembled at its present site. It is open for visitors during the summer.
External links
References
{{reflist
Windmills
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