Progress Archive

Jul 2011
The more observant among you will have noticed that the mill now has a fantail. This was lifted into place in early July and the millwrights are doing the final adjustments to get it operational. Once this is working it will automatically turn the cap (and eventually sails) to always face into wind.

The electric motor has been fitted. This means we'll be able to grind corn even when the wind is not blowing. The millwrights are currently dressing the stones ready for our first attempt at milling.

Our society is 10 years old this July. Happy birthday HWPS! This was a good opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and how much we have achieved. We celebrated with a party in the mill and our guests of honour were the millers from Windesheim, our twinned windmill in Zwolle, Holland.

March 2011
We are fast approaching our 2011 open season and this year promises to be the most exciting yet! We are closer than ever to getting the mill back to working order and have our fingers crossed for a full set of sails before the end of summer 2011. Come along and see us at our open days - we are now open two weekends a month over the summer, so there's an even bigger opportunity to keep track of our progress.

November 2010
We have won £46,500 in The "People's Millions", part of the Big Lottery Fund!! This money was hard earned and many of our society members and supporters rallied round to ring and vote for us. This much needed money will be spent on finally getting our 5 double shuttered sails, allowing our mill to fully come to life and work again. For those of you who didn't manage to watch the competition on Monday night's Calendar news, you can watch it on the ITV news website.

The Tower has now been painted black (see picture on the right) and we are currently waiting for a better weather to see if it needs another coat. One more step closer to restoring the mill to its former glory!

February 2010
Windmill Pancake Day - We held a successful Pancake Day, with over 50 people battling in the snowy conditions to gather around and inside the mill, flipping pancakes and generally having great fun. This was our most successful Pancake Day ever - many thanks to everyone who supported the event.

January 2010
The cap has now been on a month and it looks stunning against the snowy backdrop of York (spot the snow angel in the foreground). The recent cap replacement has generated so much interest that we have now sold out of sponsorships for all 200 shutters and 8 fantail blades. I'd like to say a big Thank You to everyone who has supported us in this venture, helping us raise a desperately needed £10,400 for the mill.

Our Millwrights, Tom, Steve and Dave are still working hard inside the mill over the winter months and you will be able to see the progress we have made when the Mill opens again for the 2010 season in May. Details of all open days and events for 2010 will be posted here in due course.

February – October 2009 Our Millwrights, Tom, Steve and Dave have been working hard to complete the cap and the date was originally set for 25th November 2009 for our brand new cap and fantail, along with the restored iron cross and brakewheel, to be loaded up onto the mill. This date has been moved back due to continuing high winds during the week.

The new cap is a work of art. The inner structure comprises 28 oak spars clad with horizontal pine boarding. These are then covered by vertical boards of red cedar, all meticulously chamfered into graceful curves. See the Cap page for all the details.

We have created a “time capsule” for the ball finial on the very top of the mill. This capsule contains various objects of current day interest and will be next seen by a future generation of cap restorers (which we hope won’t be required for a long time!). This is a time honoured tradition in milling circles.

We have installed a fully functioning toilet inside the mill, using an innovative and very sympathetic design. Visitors have hardly noticed its presence until pointed out to them! Richie has also worked his carpentry genius and constructed 4 grain bins using his own original design, whereby the bins encircle the central vertical shaft. This design enables us to maximise space for visitors while still being functional.

A “new” set of millstones has been installed, as one of the original sets was in very poor condition. All the stones furniture has also been built and installed by our millwrights. These are truly beautiful, made of ash and pine and show that we are well on our way to becoming a fully working mill.

And finally, to improve access, handrails have been installed on the stairs which have made it much easier for visitors to climb up (and down) the mill.

January 2009 - Work is progressing well. The cap is under wraps for the winter, but almost complete. We've got high hopes that it will be back in place on top of the mill by summer. Our new railings have been erected around the edge of the roundabout and look pretty stunning. The inside of the mill is also getting a lot of attention, with all the floorboards being replaced and the inside walls getting a well needed coat of whitewash. All of the 240 shutters for the sails have also been delivered - in kit form! All we need to do now is put them together. If anybody has workshop space where we could construct the sails then we would be grateful to hear from you. Please call Bob on 01904 795851.

December 2008 - Work on the rebuilding of the cap so far is really impressive though progress is disappointingly slow due to the excessive calls from other mills for Tom Davies, our Millwright. We have high expectations for the New Year and wrought iron fence railings for the roundabout and handrails for the entrance steps have been ordered.

January - October 2008: Progress has not been as fast as we had hoped this year. The lime render round the base of the mill didn’t set properly in the bad weather so had to be taken off and re-applied by the Council. We are still waiting for this to “go off” before the tower can be painted black. Fingers crossed for some good weather (!)

There has been excellent progress made to the Stones floor (1st floor). New floorboards have been laid and a much needed new staircase from the ground floor has been put in. The millwrights have lifted the top stones on all four pairs so we could finally see the condition of the cutting surfaces. Unfortunately, it wasn’t pleasant viewing! As you can see on the picture here, they were in much worse condition than we feared. During the last years of the mill’s working life (in the 1930’s), it must have been driven incessantly under electric motors, without the necessary maintenance and the cutting edges have been ground away to nothing, to the detriment of the stones. Good news was on hand however, as our millwright managed to find a “new” set of stones which we will be able to replace our (soon to be) working pair.

There has also been excellent progress in restoring the ground floor machinery. All of the hurst frame, tentering gear and the kibbler have been either restored or replaced and is now looking as good as new.

We have held six open weekends this year, attracting many locals and visitors to York alike. Many opted to join the society and we were thrilled with the huge number of compliments on our progress and on how impressive the mill looks.

The cap is under construction and progress is steady. We had hoped it would be ready by September and it is now a race against time to get it finished and lifted before the bad weather hits this winter. The fan stage and fantail are ready, as are the new shears. See the Restoration page or click on the picture of the cap for more photos of the cap progress.

In August this year, we celebrated reaching 500 members, and by October it was over 520 members, not bad for a small charity! Jen Hay’s enthusiasm has once again paid off this year through her very successful Open Gardens in July and Barn Dance in September. At the September open weekend, we held an Art Show for people to showcase items they’d made out of off-cuts of wood from the new floorboards. We had 35 entries, and these have been on display in the mill for two months. They have received much admiration. A big thank you to everyone who entered an exhibit.

We received a surprise in July when we were contacted by a gentleman living in Malvern, who had been cleaning out his loft and came across a bin bag full of old, historic documents, mainly about Acomb and Holgate. The house used to be owned by solicitors who had moved from York down to Malvern, taking the work of one of the prestigious land owners of the time, with him. We gave the gentleman a donation towards his own charity and he sent us these documents, which are dated between 1774 and the late 1800’s. Many were conveyance documents, written in beautiful old script, but to us, the most interesting find among these documents was the original enclosure map of Acomb/Holgate in 1774, hand drawn with all the land owners names against their parcels of land. We can clearly see “George Waud” written on the small rectangle of land where the windmill stands. This would be only four years after the mill had been built. The documents have now been preserved in the York City Archives and would be of interest to anyone researching local history, although not to our mill itself, unfortunately.

September - December 2007: The scaffolding and fencing has finally been removed following the external renovation done by York Council. All the lime render has been applied to the outside walls, so once it has dried (by spring 2008), we will be able to paint it the traditional black colour. Visit our restoration page for more information.

Eric Daniels (Helens dad) has kindly made some shutters to protect the ground floor windows and these are now in place.

HWPS has finally signed the lease with York council, so the trustees are now officially in charge of Holgate Windmill!

We have had a massive boost to our finances with a fantastic donation of £20,000 from York Conservation Trust. Thank you so much for this much needed help. The photograph on the left shows the cheque being handed to Bob by Phillip Thrake and Christine Allpress of York Conservation Trust.

The society held two large fundraising events over the last couple of months. In November, we held a sponsored 'Storming the walls' event, with many society members and friends walking round the city walls. This was a very high profile event, covered by the Yorkshire Evening Press and many people made donations, and these, along with the sponsor money, meant we raised £4,000 for the society. Santa also visited the mill on the first two weekends in December and was kept extremely busy handing out presents to hundreds of children, and raising £700 in the process.

Bob has also worked his magic again and secured us funding of nearly £98,000 from Grantscape, an environmental grant-making charity. This extra money means that we will be able to fully restore one set of stones and all the machinery required to drive them by wind power. This means that by 2009, with this work completed and the sails in place, we should be producing flour from Holgate Windmill by wind power. The dream is becoming a reality.

October 2007 - Thanks to everyone who has visited the mill during the summer, we hope you liked what you saw. We have been very busy over the past year and our restoration is going great guns. Heres some of the work that has been done...

> New electrical supply.
> Brickwork repaired and new render applied.
> New windows fitted.
> Structural repairs to first floor beams.
> Removal of temporary supports from the ground floor.
> New stone slabs on ground floor.
> Old cap and curb ring removed.
> New curb ring lifted in.
> Restoration of machinery under the first floor (ongoing).
> Manufacture of new cap, fantail & sail frames (ongoing).

...and there's still a lot more to do. The next phase of work, funds allowing, will see us working towards completing the following projects:

> Paint exterior brickwork and interior walls.
> Complete and lift in (by crane), the new cap.
> Install electric motor to power one set of stones.
> Add sail shutters and restore wind powered drive.
> Renew floorboards & stairs
> Add a sack hoist.

March 2007 - We have recently secured £66,000 from The Esmee Fairburn Foundation. This will pay for the remaining work already underway to restore the cap and also allow us to put skeleton sail frames and fantail back on the mill. The cap is due to be returned to the mill in May.

In December 2006 we secured £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery fund to restore the ground floor. Work is already well underway. The Stones (1st) floor has been strengthened and this has allowed us to remove the 32 props which were holding it up. The ground floor now looks and feels much more spacious, giving more room to move around and view the machinery. The next stage is to put a 'Yorkshire Stone' floor down.

The council have completed work on the structure of the mill, so it is good for another 200 years. It will be painted black when the weather improves. HWPS are paying to keep the scaffolding in place so we can complete the work on the curb ring.

In December, brand new solid oak doors and window frames were fitted. Opening up the window apertures has allowed much more light to enter the mill and has brightened up all of the floors.

Most of our planned restoration work will be completed by the time we open for our first open day on May 12th & 13th. The improved condition of the mill will allow us to open our doors on a much more regular basis. During summer 2007, we intend to open the mill on the first weekend of every month.

October 2006 - The City of York Council is making a very thorough repair to the outside of the Mill. The scaffolding is up and all the exterior black paint and concrete render has been removed. All brickwork has been repointed and strengthened and most of the new lime render has been applied. To complete the work it is essential to remove the cap and this was lifted off on 12th October using a large crane and transporter. It will be stored in a secure unit for about six months while it is being restored by Thompsons millwrights, so expect the mill to look barer than usual for a while.

Also as part of the restoration programme HWPS has ordered new windows and doors, mains power has been connected so we now have full lighting and power throughout the mill.

July 2006: Phase 1 of our restoration works has started. The scaffolding has just been erected so the exterior brickwork and cap can be renovated and painted.

The windows will also be re-instated, so the outside of the mill will look most attractive with its distinctive black tar coating and white cap. Work has also recently commenced on getting a full electricity supply into the mill so we will be able to power lights from the mains.

There is still some concern over the cap and it is thought that the work can only be carried out if the cap is removed and the work undertaken on the ground. We are in discussions with Tom Davis, the millwright from Thompsons Millwrights to decide how best to do this. One of our main problems is finding a place to store the cap. So if anybody knows of any large, secure areas close to Holgate then we would be glad to hear from you.

The picture on the right is how the look looks at the moment - not a pretty sight admittedly, but one which fills us with confidence that all our hard work is worthwhile!

Street Party & Mill open day. A great weekend was had by all and we raised over £300 for the society. Thanks to everyone who came along and supported the event.

April 2006: We are having another open weekend on 13th & 14th May. Entry is free to members or £3 to non members. You will have the opportunity to explore all four floors and the cap. Check out the open day page for more details.


Feb 2006: Our new fund raising campaign has taken off already in a big way! Following our initial advertisements through the York Evening Press, we have had a lot of interest and have already had one very generous donation which will help fantastically with our task. Click here for more details on the new campaign. We will shortly be writing to all our members with more information, so watch your letterboxes.

The dates for the summer fayres have been released so please look at our dates for your diary section below for more details.

We have purchased a corn dresser (a machine used by millers to seperate the finer grains from the coarse ones, through a sieve like system). Strangely, we won it through an Ebay auction, and as luck would have it, it was from York!! It is a large machine, roughly 6ft long and 5ft high and is in really good condition so will be fantastic to use inside the mill.

Jan 2006: After our disappointing response from the Heritage Lottery Fund late last year, the society has launched it's new campaign to raise fund for the restoration. Further details can be found here.

We plan to give ourselves a much higher profile over the coming year, both to raise awareness and funds, and have plans for numerous events including open days and special party days in and around the mill. Many of these are still being organised so watch this space for more details

July 2005: Hot off the press - Sunday 18th September has been confirmed for the next mill open day. Click herefor more details. If you missed our last open day in May, nows your chance to see what's hiding behind those walls.

After submitting our initial proposals to the Heritage Lottery Fund, we have had a disappointing first reaction from them, highlighting our problems with lack of facilities and space. All is not lost though as they suggested various options which we are now looking into.

The latest copy of Millnews should be dropping through your letterbox soon. Millnews is only available to members, so if you want to receive it you'll have to join, you know it makes sense!

On the 10th July the society held an Open Gardens day which was a great success raising over £320. The day itself was a scorcher and everybody had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

June 2005: The open weekend in May saw the mills doors opening to the public for over 75 years. Over 130 people turned up over the two days and we recruited 39 new members. Everybody agreed that it was well worth the wait. Check out our photo gallery. If you missed the weekend, we are holding another open day in September.

On the 18th and 19th June, society members went on a two day tour of Lincolnshire mills. For all involved this was not only a social event but also a fact finding mission to seek help and advice from millers and organisations who have already been through the restoration process.

Let there be light: We have just received a grant from the City of York Council to help us get mains power and lighting into the mill. Watch this space for further details.

April 2005: Last October, a group of society members braved the elements to plant 500 daffodil bulbs around the windmill to give it a splash of colour come spring time. Anybody who has been past the windmill in the last couple of weeks will have seen that the hard work has paid off with a host of golden daffodils surrounding the mill.

All members will soon be receiving the new edition of the Millnews newsletter with details of the open weekend on 7th - 8th May. Members will be given the rare opportunity to see the interior of all four floors in the mill.

Following our initial application to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), we have been advised that we have more chance of being successful in our bid if we first of all apply for a Project Planning Officer Grant. We are therefore looking into how we can take this forward. Although this may seem like a backward step, it is actually a very positive response from the HLF. If our grant application for this Officer is approved, we have great hopes that they will be a strong asset to our society.

With the recent departure of Dr. David Hope to pastures new, we have been looking for a new patron. Following our search, we are proud to announce that our new Patrons are TV historian Adam Hart-Davis and local Look North presenter Harry Gration.

We are expanding our range of merchandise and will shortly have new notelets and white/black polo shirts. These will be added to the website Shop page when available. All merchandise will be available from our stands at this years summer fayres, details and dates below.

We have also made available all of the back issues of our MillNews newsletters, which you can view or download by following the link here.

September 2004: Planning permission has been granted. The following press release has been issued to announce this fantastic piece of news:

"PRESS RELEASE

A residents group, which plans to restore and maintain York’s last remaining windmill, is celebrating the news that the City of York Council has granted Planning Consent for their venture.

Holgate Windmill Preservation Society was formed in 2001, to bring this local landmark back into full working order. Chairman Bob Anderton of Windmill Rise in Holgate said” Planning Consent will unlock the next stage of the development, by enabling us to complete arrangements for leasing the Mill for 15 years, from its owners, the City Council. This will fulfil the Heritage Lottery Fund’s minimum ownership conditions, and allow us to apply to them, for 90% of the estimated £400,000 restoration cost.”

Mr. Anderton continued “We hope to raise the balance from our own fundraising, with contributions from the business community and grant-making trusts. Restoration work could take up to 18 months. The Mill will then be opened to small, pre-booked parties.”


May 2004: We have held our Annual General Meeting and elected Bob Anderton in as our new Chairman. A big thank you and farewell to Robert Hall who is moving to Filey.
Richard Green was re-elected as Vice Chair and Christine Bramwell was re-elected as Treasurer. Brian Lambert was also re-elected as secretary.
Approx. 60 people attended the evening which was held at Bishopthorpe Palace, home of our Patron. We heard the Chairmans and Treasurers reports, followed by a handover to the new chair (Bob) and a presentation to Robert to say Thank you for all his and June's commitment to the society over the last 3 years.
After refreshments, we heard a very interesting presentation from John Boucher from Heage windmill, who talked us through the restoration project on their mill- it looks fantastic now! It was very informative and very interesting to see a project actually come to life and achieve it's goal.
Other than the AGM, subs renewal letters went out on 31st May, £5 individual membership, £8 for household/ family membership.

Tickets for the Open Gardens event on Sunday 11th July are now on sale, priced £3. All windmill members and family/friends are very welcome, please contact Brian for tickets.

March 2004: The official planning application has been submitted to the Council and a notice has been posted on the mill offering the public the 21 days to to register any opinions or objections. Watch this space for the result of the application!

The windmill education workbooks are finalised and look superb. Although these are not really needed until the mill is renovated, they are still very useful to give local schools an idea of what educational resources we have available once the mill is up and running.

The date for the Barn Dance is set for 18th September at the English Martyrs Church hall, Holgate. Tickets cost £5.

More dates for the diary have been added.

February 2004: We have received a first draft of the document from the solicitors regarding the incorporation of the society. Comments are being sent back on this. Incorporation is necessary to ensure that the society will be responsible for the windmill, and not the individual members of the committee.

The consultation to the Windmill Rise residents on the proposed planning application will take place on 10th February. All residents have been given copies of the proposals, including the drawings of how the mill will look, once renovated. This is the first opportunity for residents to raise comments. Once the application has been formally submitted, the public can officially voice their opinions to the Council.

We have submitted a progress report to the LHI describing the use of their grant money.

We are planning a Barn Dance after the great success of the one in 2003- more details when available.

The website now contains pages dedicated to Eliza Gutch, the last known owner of the mill, and David Lodge, a local historian who did much to raise awareness of the current plight of the mill. Please take time to read these pages as they are fitting tributes.

The family of Mr William Gill, have kindly allowed us to use some photographs taken by Mr Gill in 1939. These images detail the replacement of the mills cap. You can view some of these photos by clicking here.

January 2004: Happy New Year to all our members and readers! Although Christmas is usually the time for relaxing, the windmill society committee has been busy over the festive period. Siginificant progress has been made on the architectural drawings of the mill so we now have a good idea of what it will look like, when the work is finished. Once these drawings are completed, we will be in a position to submit a planning application to the City Council. But, before we attempt this, we intend to invite local residents to discuss the proposals with us, as we are very keen to get as much local support as possible. This project is intended to benefit the whole community and it is very important to us that people see this restoration as a positive improvement to the City. We will be in touch with the local residents with details of this soon.

The Educational workbooks have been ordered and will hopefully be with us by Easter. These will be at a National Curriculum Level 2 standard and will be distributed to the local schools.

The booklet on Holgate Windmill has proved immensly popular, with 700 having already been sold. If you wish to purchase one, please see our shop for details.

September 2003: The booklet on Holgate Windmill, as featured in the "York Evening Press" and the "York Star", has been printed and being sold to raise money. (See shop for details). Educational workbooks have been commissioned which are based around the National Curriculum levels to teach children all about windmills. This will help to raise awareness of our cause within local schools and will hopefully be fun for the children to complete.
The millwrights estimate is a cost of approx. £400,000 to fully renovate the windmill so we will be looking for Lottery funding to help pay for this work.
An "Open Gardens" is planned for next year for fund-raising, more information when it comes available.


August 2003: The Council finished its structural work and the scaffolding has now been removed. Members of the committee have now been allowed access inside the mill for the first time. Funds are still coming in, with a successful day at the West Bank Park summer fayre. Several members of the committee recently visited four restored windmills:- Skidby Mill (the only other surviving Yorkshire windmill) and three others in Lincolnshire (Wrawby Post Mill, Ellis Mill and Waltham Mill) to get a perspective on the realities of running a windmill in the present day. Click here for more details of our day out.

A two page article on Holgate Windmill appeared in the September issue of the "Dalesman" magazine.

June 2003: The Council commenced its initial structural repair works. Scaffolding was erected around the mill. The Council have agreed that once this safety work is completed, the lease of the windmill will be transferred to the Society. The Society has invited quotations from four Millwright and Conservation firms with specific expertise in the restoration and repair of windmills, to initially carry out the full feasibility study of the works required to return Holgate Mill to operational use. This study will allow the society to more accurately evaluate the scope of the restoration works and the costs involved. It is anticipated that the successful Millwright will then be incorporated within the Society's professional team of Architects, Structural engineers and Quantity surveyors to produce detailed restoration proposals. These will, in due course, form the basis of Planning, Listed Building and Heritage Lottery Grant proposals.


March 2003: We have applied to the Gannett Foundation (the charitable arm of Gannett Co. Inc, owners of the Yorkshire Evening Press) for funds for the feasibility study and should know in December whether we have been successful. Holgate Ward Committee have also contributed towards this feasibility study. Progress on the initial feasibility study has been hampered by the condition of the existing structure and condition of the mill. The City of York council have refused any access to the building until a full health and safety audit has been carried out. Structural engineers Scott Wilson were appointed by the Council to identify the condition of the mill and unfortunately, elements of both the internal and external structures were in worse condition than anticipated. These remedial works were needed as a first priority. The Council have a statutory obligation to carry out these works, as legal owners of the mill. Once these works have been carried out, representatives of the society and funding bodies will be able to access the building. The Charity Commission has accepted our application for charitable status and we are now Registered Charity No. 1096303.


2002: We have been successful in achieving a local Heritage Initiative award of £21,875 to cover the millwrights survey, to display promotional items, to set up an archive and to purchase a computer and software.