Windmill at Windmill Farm

Windmill (tower-type), built late C18 to early C19, with C19 and C20 alterations.

MATERIALS: fair-faced orange brick with a slate-clad conical roof, and timber floors.

PLAN: the windmill lies approximately 1.2km north-by-north-west of Old Malton village. It is situated at the centre of a rectangular-plan farmstead and has battered circular-plan walls. The adjacent farm buildings are not of special interest and are excluded from the windmill's listing.

EXTERIOR: the windmill is a four-storey brick-built tower with window openings to all floors and it has a circular brick foundation bed. The ground floor is raised approximately 1m above ground level and is entered on the eastern side through a double plank door, off a raised brick-built loading platform built against the east elevation. The platform has a Yorkstone surface that has been re-surfaced in concrete and is approached by steps with stone treads. A two-light timber window is situated on the south side of the ground floor and a slightly off-centre, blocked window is to the west. The first floor has a former doorway on the south side that has been partially blocked to form a narrow rectangular window. There is a narrow notch cut into the brickwork above this doorway, possibly for the fitting of a timber gibbet for raising or lowering sacks of corn. The second floor has two opposed blocked window openings, and the third floor has two window positions tight under the eaves; the one to the north-east is boarded over and the other to the south is blocked-up. There is no evidence in the brickwork of putt holes for a luffing gallery, and the cap, sails and the fan tail are all missing; the cap has been replaced by a conical Welsh slate-clad roof, topped by a lead cap finial.

INTERIOR: the ground-floor double plank door is opened by a finger latch. A secondary timber stair rises on the south-eastern side to the first-floor. There is a secondary butt-jointed brick chimney stack with a narrow, blocked fireplace against the northern wall surface, which rises only to the soffit of the first floor above. A secondary steel frame supporting a small belt driven mid-C20 corn milling machine is set into the west wall and suspended from the ceiling beams, flanked to the right by modern electrical switch gear, and to the left by a grain sump in the concrete floor. The stair opening to the first floor is guarded by timber handrails, a mid-C20 timber grain bin is situated against the western wall over the milling machine below, which has a galvanized steel auger pipe to its immediate left. There are four substantial timber bearing blocks attached to the ceiling joists, each roughly aligned on a cardinal point. The ladders to the second and third floors are absent; however, a timber handrail remains on the second floor. Two cast-iron sack pulley blocks are set into the soffit of the ceiling. No windmill machinery has been retained.