Fryerning Mill (or Mill Green Mill) is a

grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

post mill The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. Its defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. All p ...

at Mill Green, Fryerning,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, which has been restored.

History

Mill Green Mill was built in 1759, replacing an earlier mill which stood some to the east during the period 1564–1731. The mill was built by Robert Barker, a

millwright A millwright is a craftsperson or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites. The term ''millwright'' (also known as ''industrial mecha ...

from

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...

. A roundhouse was included from the start. The mill was owned by the Petre estate and records of expenditure on the mill are in the Essex Record Office. In July or August 1774, a farmer was killed by being struck by the sails of the mill. New sails were fitted in 1802 and 1806, and a new stock in 1821. An accident at the mill resulted in the miller sustaining a fractured thigh in 1852, and the owner of the mill being reported to have been carried round on the sails for ten or twelve revolutions before he was rescued. The roof of the mill was repaired in 1878 and the mill re-tarred. A new sail was fitted in 1884 and a new pair of sails in 1902. The mill was working until at least 1905. Some repairs were done to the body of the mill in the 1930s. The mill was restored in 1959 by R.F. Collinson, who had bought the mill house and discovered the mill in the garden. This entailed the complete replacement of the frame of the mill, including the crowntree. On 2 January 1976, the sails ran away in a gale and the brake wheel disintegrated. A new brake wheel was constructed in 1989.

Description

Mill Green Mill is a post mill with a single-storey roundhouse. The mill is winded by a tailpole. It has two

spring sails Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different designs, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails. Jib sails The jib sail is found in Mediterranean countries and consists of a simple triangle of cloth wound rou ...

and two spring patents. There are two pairs of

millstone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

s arranged head and tail.

Trestle and roundhouse

The

trestle ATLAS-I (Air Force Weapons Lab Transmission-Line Aircraft Simulator), better known as Trestle, was a unique electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generation and testing apparatus built between 1972 and 1980 during the Cold War at Sandia National Laborato ...

is of

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

, with the main post thought to be of sweet chestnut. The crosstrees are long, square at the ends, thickening to by at the centre. The underside of the lower crosstree is above ground level. The main post is nearly in length, square at its base and diameter at the top. The quarterbars are by in section. The roundhouse is of brick, with a boarded roof covered in tarred felt.

Body

The body of the mill measures by in plan. The crowntree is by in section. It has a cast-iron plate bolted to its underside, with a pintle projecting downwards that fits into a cast-iron pot on the top of the main post, a reversal of the normal fitting. The side girts are by in section.

Sails and windshaft

As originally built, the mill would have had a wooden windshaft and four common sails. The windshaft is of

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

, probably replacing a former wooden one. It is long and carries the head and tail wheels. The mill has two spring sails and two spring patents. The sails have a span of .

Machinery

The head wheel is of clasp arm construction, it is diameter. It has an iron segment ring bolted on which has a total of 120 teeth. It drive a cast-iron stone nut, with 20 cogs. Originally, the head wheel had 69 cogs, of 4½ in (114 mm) pitch. The tail wheel is also of clasp arm construction, diameter. It has an iron segment ring bolted on which has a total of one hundred teeth. It drives a cast-iron stone nut, with fifteen cogs. Both wheels were made from

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

. The headstones are diameter and the tailstones are diameter.

Millers

Millers who worked this mill were: *Dearman 1759–? *John Dearman ?–1852 *Alfred Tuck 1855–66 *James Nicholls 1866–99 *Rankin 1899–1905

External links

Windmill World
webpage on Mill Green Mill.

References

{{EssexWindmills Post mills in the United Kingdom Grinding mills in the United Kingdom Windmills completed in 1759 Grade II* listed buildings in Essex Windmills in Essex Buildings and structures in the Borough of Brentwood Grade II* listed windmills