The Windmill

The Windmill is an early 18th-century post mill located on the east side of Duck End in Finchingsfield. It is timber framed and weatherboarded, with a roundhouse made of red brick. This small post mill was brought from another location and erected on a high mill mound before 1840, with the roundhouse added in that year. Originally, it featured four single-shuttered spring sails that revolved anti-clockwise on an all-wooden windshaft, a rare characteristic that remains dismantled. The mill drove one pair of stones directly from the brakewheel and had a tail pole to turn it into the wind. Inside the structure, there are many carved dates, the earliest of which is 1753. The Windmill belonged to the Spains Hall estate and last operated around 1890. After falling into disrepair, it was repaired by the Parish and again in 1958 by Essex County Council. As of August 1984, a major restoration program by Essex County Council had begun.