Holgate Windmill

YORK

SE55SE WINDMILL RISE 1112-1/1/1186 Holgate Windmill 14/06/54

II

Wind-powered corn mill, now disused. Built between 1770 and 1792 on a site occupied by windmills since the C15; repaired as a landmark in 1939 after milling ceased. Brick, painted with bitumen. Cap covered with painted steel plates. PLAN: circular EXTERIOR: 5 storeys high, battered up to the level of the 3rd stage. At ground-floor level there are doorways with segmental arches on the west and east sides, the western doorway now blocked internally. Most of the windows have segmental heads. To the left of each doorway there is a blocked ground-floor window. The upper storeys have 6 staggered windows. The brickwork is corbelled below the round cap, which has a ball finial. The mill was unusual in having 5 sails, but these were removed following gale damage in 1930 and only the wooden stocks remain. The fantail was also removed, but projecting main timbers remain. INTERIOR: recorded by RCHM as having plastered internal walls, softwood ladders, and 4 upper floors with pine beams and stop-chamfered joists but with floorboards removed. Also recorded as having machinery largely intact, with a pair of millstones of gritstone and a second pair of French Burr stones, an iron main drive, and stone-nuts with a metal frame carrying wooden cogs. This is the last surviving windmill of the many which once functioned around the City of York. (RCHME: City of York: London: 1972-: 57).

Listing NGR: SE5841951477