Dalesman for May 2011 features two enjoyable, but very different visits.
Holgate Mill was a surreal sight: an eighteenth century windmill in the middle of a street of comfortable twentieth century semi-detached family homes.
Bob Anderton beside the machinery of Holgate Windmill
When it was built, Holgate was the height of wind technology. It boasted a fantail, a vane mounted to the rear of the mill that automatically aligned the mill to face the wind.
Previously, windmills had been mounted on a post sunk in the ground. When the wind direction changed, the miller had to rotate the entire building, millstones and all, to face the wind again – a hard, heavy job.
Older mills had four sails, usually made of canvas like the sails of a ship. Holgate had five sails for maximum efficiency. The sails were also fitted with shutters, like venetian blinds. In low winds, the shutters were closed to catch as much wind as possible. In high winds, the shutters were opened up to allow some wind to pass through, and avoid damage to the sails.
Despite being the height of technology when it was built, when electricity became easily available, the miller preferred to use an electric motor, rather than rely on the vagaries of the wind. Even today, after restoring the wind powered machinery, the preservation society will run one grindstone on wind power, and the other with an electric motor, so that they can work when the wind doesn’t blow.
One of the joys of eighteenth-century engineering is that, unlike modern electronics, it’s all big and visible. Inside the mill, giant cogs and shafts transmit the power from the rotating sails to the grindstones. Most of the gears are cast iron, still strong and serviceable after over 200 years. But many of the hoppers, vats and beams are wood, and years of damp and insects have destroyed these. However, these have been built anew: the members of Holgate Mill Preservation Society have achieved a great deal in ten years.
Bob attributes this success to a skilled team, generous funders, and their strategy. Rather than try to do all the work themselves, they went to a professional millwright, Tom Davies, and applied for grants to fund the work.
Visitors to the mill need to be fit and agile, as access to all four floors is by ladder. As you progress up the tower, the rooms become progressively smaller, and right up in the cap, the room is dominated by a huge toothed wheel, attached the sails. When the wind turns that wheel, it would be easy for the unwary to get caught in the machinery. The picture above shows Bob Anderton, the chairman of the preservation society, next to the great gear that is turned by the sails.
Bob hopes that soon the mill will be grinding corn, selling flour – and even possibly adding a bakery.
He says, “We want to grind flour and sell it for people to use.” As the mill is currently in use as a mini-community hall, the addition of food can only mean even more visitors to this very unusual windmill.
For further information, see www.holgatewindmill.org or Telephone Bob Anderton on 01904 795851
Holgate Mill was once cutting edge technology. By contrast, Hackfall was always meant to evoke the past, created as a romantic ruin.
Paul Mosley at Hackfall Woods
Hackfall was originally woodland that would have been used for timber. In fact, said Paul Mosley, Hackfall’s officer, “It’s believed that the Aislabies originally bought Hackfall for the timber, and for a tufa quarry, which they used to clad several buildings at Studley Royal.”
The Aislabies who bought Hackfall were famous for their landscape design around Fountains Abbey, now a World Heritage Site. But their landscape at Hackfall, where they built romantic ‘ruin’ eye-catchers in the forest, is less well-known.
But in its day, it was famous. Turner painted it, and Victorian tourist guides advertised carriages from Ripon Station to Hackfall. But, after years as a Victorian pleasure ground, the timber was all felled in the 1930s.
It chanced that the land was then bought by someone who went against the advice at the time, which was to replant with fast-growing, commercial conifers. Instead, the new owner bided his time, and let nature take its course.
It has resulted in Hackfall now being classed as the relatively rare ‘semi natural ancient woodland.’ The semi-natural bit is because, says Paul – that lucky man whose job it is to know Hackfall intimately – “Most woodland has always been managed, and at Hackfall there’s evidence of limekilns, charcoal burning, and sawmills all in the wood. But the seedbank, and the wildlife, such as invertebrates, are still there.”
“And there’s lots of wildlife. We had a moth expert who trapped 158 species in one evening.”
Hackfall is made even more interesting by the series of follies built by the Aislabies. They act as ‘eyecatchers’ and ‘surprises’ to draw walkers around the wood.
Hackfall is also full of falling water, with so many becks, trickles and cascades, it’s quite difficult to tell what’s natural and what’s man-made. Which, of course, was the Aislabies’ intention: to enhance the natural landscape to make it more beautiful, and more interesting. Nearly three hundred years later, it’s clear that they knew what they were doing.
Hackfall is beguiling at any time of year – I recommend a visit.
See www.woodlandtrust.org.uk and www.hackfall.org.uk for more, and information on how to get there, where to park, etc