Welcome to the Ashdon Windmill Website!

Thank you for looking into our website and welcome to the Friends of Ashdon Mill. And a particularly warm welcome to Joan Craig, Pittsburgh USA, Martin Corkery of 

Brisbane, Australia and Felix Laroy of Brugge, Belgium (Master Miller of Belgium).

The "we" in the above paragraph is in reality the community of Ashdon village which has a current population circa 750 people and lots of animals. The village was established in 1087 although there is evidence of a settlement. During the 18th Century there were four mills at Ashdon, one of which was a very small watermill.

The acquisition of the Mill was the result of a public meeting held in the village in April 1999 when over 100 village residents unanimously voted to save and restore the Mill. The Mill was at the time the property of Thurlow Estate who agreed to give the Mill to the village together with a grant towards the restoration to get the project off the ground - almost literally.

The Mill is now legally owned by Ashdon Windmill Trust Limited, a registered charity number 1078153.
The trustees are at present John Double, David How, Bill Wisdom and Andrew Rowley all of whom are established village residents.

Many aspects of the work involved are being shared around the community apart from the work which requires the attention of an experienced millwright. The oldest picture of the Mill we have dated 1932 is shown here by kind permission of Mrs Farries who's late husband Kenneth G Farries published Essex Windmills Millers and Millwrights in 1984 which is now available in five volumes.

We are sure there are many older photographs hidden away in family photograph albums and we would be delighted to see them so if anyone has any please let us know. We are also interested in later photographs particularly those around World War II when there were a many people in this area from overseas and other parts of the country. The US Fighter Wing at Little Walden and evacuees from London are some examples. Some sketchy notes about the historical events surrounding the Mill follow and we hope to fill out the information as we progress with our research.