February 08 - New dates for your diary added below

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.

In 2008 we hope to continue with the next phase of works. This 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.

Other pages you may wish to visit

Dates for your Diary for forthcoming events. On January 18th we will be hosting 'Holgate - An Illustrated Talk' which will be a really informative look at our local history.

Restoration for information and photos of recent work

How To Help either hands on or with a donation.

Millnews for past copies of our newsletters.

Membership to join the society.

News Archive archived 'What's New' articles.

Dates for your diary

Mill Open Days 2008
The mill will be open on the weekend of 10th & 11th May to celebrate National Mills Weekend, and then on the first weekend of every month over the summer period. Visit our Open Day page for more details. The dates are as follows:

11th & 12th May (National Mills Weekend).
7th & 8th June
5th & 6th July (Also see 'Open Gardens' below)
2nd & 3rd August
6th & 7th September
4th & 5th October

Open Gardens 2008
Sunday 6th July - Local residents have offered to open their gardens once again for our annual open gardens day. This is always a great day out - and it coincides with a mill open day so you can visit the mill as well. Contact Jen Hay (01904 792638) for more details.

Halloween Stories
Friday October 31st - Jan Hepworth will be reading scary childrens stories in the mill between 5:30-6:30pm. Bring your children along for a great (trick or) treat. We'll post more details here as we have them.