FRANK GREGORY'S IDEA

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000

In February 1996 I wrote to Frank Gregory at his home in Maldon Road, Brighton as I had heard through the grape vine that he was a molinologist. I was told that he was the man who knew all about windmills and I just wondered if he had a picture of the old windmill on the Downs above Josh Gifford's Gallops in Findon. He replied promptly but unfortunately during his researches he had not come across any representation of this particular windmill.

Prompted by my quest for pictorial evidence of the Findon Windmill, Frank trekked to the windmill site one day and then arrived on my doorstep.  He brought with him a sketch of a windmill.  An artistic friend of his had made a quick drawing of a painting hanging in an antique shop in Uckfield in the 1960s.  The original picture was by Robert Thorne-Wait, a painter of rustic figures and landscapes in watercolour.  Frank had the idea that it could be the Findon Windmill working away on the Findon Downs with High Salvington Windmill on the hillside opposite. Could he possibly be right? If so, where is the original painting now?

After studying the above sketch, I would put my money on the windmill in the sketch being that of the Cissbury Windmill  (sometimes called Ballard's Mill or Broadwater Mill) looking across to the High Salvington Windmill on the other side of the valley.   The Cissbury Windmill stood below the southern slopes of Cissbury Ring and was demolished early in the 1900s.

When Frank died in June 1998 he left his lifetime collection of windmill memorabilia to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton in West Sussex. The library forms the hub of the museum and holds relevant books, pamphlets, photographs and archive material concerning rural buildings and the countryside.

The museum staff had the task of sifting through the bequest accumulated by Frank over a span of some sixty years. His contribution to the museum consisted of some 100,000 photographs and postcards, plus his own admirable sketches, engineering drawings, books, pamphlets and artifacts. The photographs and postcards are a historic record of many mills and other buildings prior to their restoration or demolition. Frank's amassed pictorial collection most likely contains the only surviving reminder of many destroyed rural buildings, but alas not the Findon Windmill.

What about Frank himself? How did he become so interested in windmills that by the end of his life he had become a legend himself?

His parents' influence paid a large part. At a young age Frank and his sister were taken for country rambles past the windmills on the Downs behind Brighton. By his early teens, Frank's interest in windmills and watermills had grown to a passion, both in their construction and operation. He became an enthusiastic photographer and frequently made his own sketches.

Below are three of Frank Gregory's photographs taken in September 1939 at Findon Sheep Fair when 11,000 sheep were auctioned. This was two weeks before he joined up for the duration of the Second World War. This Sheep Fair was the last to be held on Nepcote Green until 1947. During the war years, Findon was deemed to be too close to the coast and at risk of bombing and the fair was moved to West Grinstead until 1947.

The Second World War indirectly gave Frank the opportunity to further another interest — trains, while he was engaged in the organisation of troop movements.

Following the war, Frank trained as a woodwork teacher. He was essentially a hands-on, practical man who loved to solve a mechanical or construction problem.

From then on Frank became an authority on the history, construction and operation of mills and similar buildings, specialising in those in Sussex. The "know-how" was gained through first hand sheer determination and perseverance, especially in gaining access to off the beat sites. Unfortunately, much of this was never recorded and so is lost forever. I have often heard if said when confronted with a mill-type problem, "If only Frank were here".

The restoration of many Sussex mills, especially West Blatchington, Oldland, Nutley and Polegate, benefited from his expertise as well as his practical advice.

His wonderful collection at the Weald and Downland will keep his memory alive — as well as the sketch he came to see me with — the one that just may be Findon Windmill.

A mystery still remains concerning the sketch.    If Robert Thorne Waite sketched a Findon landscape, he surely executed a watercolour of this scene and just where is such a painting now I wonder?

Continue if you would like to read The End of the Findon Windmill Story.