Saxtead Green Post Mill

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Saxtead Green Post Mill is a windmill at Saxtead Green in Suffolk, East Anglia in England. It was built around 1700 and is one of the finest post mills in the region. It was substantially rebuilt at least twice, and the machinery and millstones are still in good working order.

[edit] History

Mr. Jesse Wightman, gave this interview in the late 1940's concerning the history of the mill.

'The earliest date relative to the mill is June 6th, 1796, when it was in the hands of one Amos Webber; who was also a farmer and ground for farmers, Amos Webber was followed by Robert Holmes, George Holmes, William Holmes, Mr. Meadows, a Mr. Eldred, then A. Aldred and A, S, Aldred. It had at that time four common sails and a wooden windshaft, was winded by a tail pole and tiller, and had a collar or yoke on the tail pole for the miller to put his head through when he pushed it round.

'It is doubtful if the mill ever had an open substructure as there is no paint left on the quarterbars. The roundhouse was then approximately 8 or 9 feet high at the wall, and the sails long enough to hit a pig as it walked in the yard. At that time it possibly had only one pair of stones in the centre of the head or breast and the head wheel or brake wheel had 72 cogs about 4 inches pitch. The mill has been lifted on the brickwork three times altogether. Once it was tailwinded standing East or South East and the vanes and bits of sails were thrown across the three cornered piece of green, and perhaps that is when the present windshaft was put in, dated 1854. At some time the right hand side stones had a pair of bevel wheels underneath with a pulley outside for driving off a portable steam engine when there was no wind. Whether the great spur wheel was put in and the mill converted into a two pair mill the last time it was heightened I do not know. It was probably done before, as a belt drive on the back at the present height is almost hopeless, and seeing that an old two-pair steam tackle (i.e. Two pairs of stones driven by the steam engine) was in the roundhouse as early as 1872 it seems possible that the top stones were steam driven before the mill was heightened. A Mr. Meadows had it lifted the last time and that was during the 1850s.

'The first fly tackle [fan tail] had high wheels on the track; these used to jump off the track during a gale and were always a trouble. Mr. A. Aldred got Collins of Melton to put low wheels on with a worm drive on each and these were on till approximately 1922; but they were always slow in motion and drove heavily; the present gear is much better, it came off the old Worlingworth Mill. The stairs or ladder came off Sweffling High Mill about 1912, and this mill had fly on the roof and two tracks, one for stairs and one for tail pole. A new fly and new fly posts were put on about 40 years ago, the old one having been blown to bits one Saturday afternoon. The new track, five yards bigger round, was put down in 1922 by Sam Clarke and the Worlingworth wheels and frame fitted at the same time. Whitmore and Binyon put the cap on the post and the plate under the crown tree for Mr. A. Aldred. A bolter across the tail was driven from a truck wheel [pulley], which drove off a cross shaft with a skew gear from the brake wheel.

'Mr. A. Aldred had two new stocks put up and the old sails thoroughly repaired in 1877 or 1878 by Collins and again by Whitmore & Binyon in 1899. Mr. A. S. Aldred put up anew inside stock in 1914 and a secondhand outside stock from Haskerton tower mill in 1925. Then I put up a secondhand inside stock from Peasenhall post mill in 1943. One inside clamp came off Diss smock mill and the other inside clamp off Haskerton Mill. When Collins repaired the four sails in 1877 or 78 a Mr. Tolman, farmer, of Wood Hall, Saxtead, carried them to Melton on a wagon. Now if these were only made in 1854, it seems rather odd that they should be getting "queer" in 23 or 24 years. This, and the steam power to the buck makes me think that they must have been either patent or spring sails. Then again, over against all this, an old man-Noah Goddard-told me he could remember cloth sails on the mill, and Meadows having it heightened. This I was told about 1924 or 1925. The old man was then getting on for 90 years of age. The late Mr. A. S. Aldred told me of one-Philip Bloomfield-an old man when A. S. Aldred was a youth-who used to tell very much the same tale. However, one is safe in saying that the period between cloth sails and the iron shaft, and patent sails could not have been long, and the head of the mill all denotes that the tail winding episode was rather disastrous. The dwelling house was built for-I think-Robert Holmes, in 1810, and when we cut through a stud-and-plaster wall upstairs, one or two studs were old pieces of sail whip.

'When the mill was converted to patent sails I do not know, but the chain purchase wheel is by Whitmore & Binyon. The first striking gear pushed the spider coupling on the front end of the striking rod outwards, to cloth or close the vanes. The stump irons or posts were cast-iron off section and were heavy and cumbersome. The triangles were pivoted on to these at the corner of the perpendicular and base. About 1912 or '14 these heavy stump irons were replaced by short ones; the triangles were pivoted at the corner of the base and the hypotenuse and the spider was made to pull in to cloth the mill. The former method needed about 98lbs. weight on the striking chain, the latter about 35lbs. The rack and pinion at the tail of the striking rod was formerly of coarse pitch and this was altered to a smaller pinion offiner pitch and a rack to suit; at the same time the shaft carrying the chain purchase wheel was heightened, so that the pinion is now above the rack, whereas before it was underneath it. Thus the direction of rotation of the chain wheel is the same to pull the spider in as it was formerly to push it out.

'About 1942 we altered the pivoting of the triangles over from the base-to-hypotenuse corner, to the base-to-perpendicular corner; the mill worked better in this position than anywhere else and thus they remain. When I repaired Syleham post mill I made the same alteration and the sails strike and regulate in a gusty wind very well.

'As to millwrights, Simon Nunn did some repairs in the 1880's,and we can say that the millwrights have been Collins, then Nunn, then Whitmore & Binyon, then Sam Clarke Senior, then George Clarke, then Sam Clarke junior, and we did the work ourselves from 1926.

'When A. Aldred took Saxtead mill, it had a pair of 4 ft. stones in the breast on the left hand side and a pair of 4 ft. 4 in. wheatstones nearly new on the right; these were smothered with black grease. The left hand pair afterwards were replaced by a pair of 4 ft. wheatstones from the roundhouse and were dressed for grist. In 1917 the bedstone was worn out and replaced by a 4 ft bedstone from Framlingham steam mill and in 1919 the runner was replaced by one from Monewden post mill. The bedstone from Framlingham was replaced in 1931 with one from Eye post mill roundhouse which had previously been brought from Mellis steam mill. The 4 ft. 4 in. stones were there till 1936 when we took them down to lighten the mill and replaced them with a 3 ft. 6 in. runner stone from Snape post mill roundhouse, and a bedstone I built with burrs I got by collecting. Some came from a 4 ft. 10 in. runner from Barley Green post mill, Stradbrooke, some from a 4 ft. 4 in. runner from Ubbeston post mill, others from a 3 ft. 6 in. bedstone off Aldridge's post mill Huntingfield, the rest from a 3 ft. 10 in. runner stone that was steam driven in Hoxne water mill. What a pedigree for a 3 ft. 6 in. bedstone! These are all the stones the windmill has had since it became Aldred's mill. I have no reliable information previous to this.

'Now the stones in the roundhouse when Alfred Aldred took the mill in 1872 were a pair of 4ft. diameter wheatstones that were put in the mill and converted to grind grist, and another pair of 4 ft. grist stones. The first pair were replaced by a pair of 4 ft. wheatstones which were taken out of Press Bros. flour mill at Yarmouth; the second were replaced by a pair of 4 ft. 8 in. grist stones that came from the old post mill at Redlingfield which was blown down the 18th Jan., 1881. These two pairs were used until after the first oil engine was fixed in 1895. In 1896 a pair of 3 ft. 8 in. wheatstones from Barnham steam mill were put in. In 1895 or early 1896, a pair of 4 ft. stones were bought off Roe of Horham post mill. These were a very hard pair and proved wasters. They were installed because the 4 ft. 8 in. stones were too big for the oil engine. The 4 ft. stones which came from Press Bros., High Mill, Yarmouth, were used till the runner wore out in 1928 when it was replaced by a new emery composition runner supplied by William Garner & Sons, Millwall. The bedstone was used till it wore out in 1935 and was replaced by a 4 ft. bedstone that came from Monewden, the fellow to the left hand runner in the windmill. These are all the millstones that have been used in the roundhouse. A. S. Aldred used to say that as a little boy he could remember the 4 ft. 8 in. stones from Redlingfield being unloaded; one slid into the low ground adjoining the ditch, and they had difficulty in getting it back.

'When A. Aldred took the mill the steam tackle drove with iron bevel gears from a lay to an upright shaft. A belt drum and belt drove onto the grist stones, and the wheatstones were driven by a second belt off the grist stone spindle; thus you had to drive the grist stones to drive the wheatstones. These were scrapped, and Whitmore's installed the present gearing which is bevel and spur, These have never run smoothly, as the bevel wheels are not a pair and hence are out of pitch. The left hand crotch spindle or quant in the windmill is wrought-iron and was put in by Collins of Melton when the old one broke. The right hand quant crotch was cast by Young's of Diss from a pattern I made in the late 1930s.

'The engine shed is the only building that there was with the mill when A. Aldred took it in the early 1870S. An old man, who died in Framlingham 30 years ago and was over 90 years old, was one of the first drivers of old portable steam engines in these parts. He used to speak of threshing during the day and driving various mills at night when there was a long spell of calm. One mill he had driven was Saxtead and for Holmes, but which Holmes I do not know. 'The first engine installed by A. Aldred was an upright bottle engine and proved useless. Then an 8 H.P. portable, by Woods & Co. of Stowmarket, was there until the first oil engine using paraffin was installed. This was a Hornsby-Ackroyd 12 H.P. No. 701 and it was replaced by a Ruston M-type 15 H.P. crude oil engine in 1925.