THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

A Victorian view of Heene Windmill in nearby Worthing in August 1864.   Artist unknown.

HEENE WINDMILL IN WORTHING

Reference

TQ 132 028

Many windmills could have been seen from the Findon downland in the heyday of this method of grinding grain.  Heene Windmill has been long gone.  I have found that the nearby Heene Windmill in Worthing goes back in history and there was, in fact, a windmill belonging to one named Heene Falconer recorded from 1279.  It seems that he gave it the name it was to bear through the centuries..  

By 1650 there was a windmill in the open field later to be called Mill Field to the west of the church.   A hundred years on the windmill was  indicated on maps of the 1750s.   The first real record does not come to light until 1825 when the Sussex Advertiser dated 15th August 1825 reported this incident....


 During the tempest at Heene near Worthing on Wednesday last, some harvesters sought shelter in a windmill (the most dangerous that can be resorted to in these cases) when one of them, a boy, was struck by lightning which singed his hair and rent his clothes, but happily without inflicting any material personal injury.
 


The Heene Windmill was was a large black post mill with a roundhouse and common sweeps working two pairs of stones.  

Its history does not come to light again until 1839 when (according to the Tithe Apportionment), the occupier or miller was William Parker.   In 1851 a tithe account gives Jane Lephard (or Leppard) as occupier of the windmill, mill plot and cottage.  I wonder if Jane had perhaps inherited the windmill after her miller husband's death and she continued to rent it.   It then came to be used by her second husband, Edmund Lephard of Heene Farm, from 1853.

Ink drawing of the Heene Windmill in 1884 by Arthur Elliott.

 

 

19th January 2004

Good morning Valerie,

Windmills

just to say how much I have enjoyed your windmill collection of various types, some look very pretty from the outside but I do love the workings better, the sheer ingenuity of man through the ages.

Now this mornings offering of "Heene Windmill" really intrigues me, on the leading edge of the sails is some sort of spiral contraption, I have never seen this before and I am ignorant as to it's purpose, perhaps you or one of the windmill aficionados could explain this feature.

Looking forward to reading the explanation.

Regards to you Valerie.
Neil

Neil Farrell, Liverpool.

 

 

I had to go all the way to New Zealand for the answer....

 

20th January 2004

hello Valerie,

I have been watching with immense interest your expose of local windmills. I once had digs in the one at Cross-in-Hand - but that's another story. They have always fascinated me and I had great plans to build my own working windmill here at Ashburton, NZ. Alas - the best I can say is "Not yet - but I've got the book..."

In answer to Neil Farrell's query about "the spiral contraption" shown, it is - I think - the sail furled, when not in active use.

The term "sail" for the propeller thingy of a windmill probably derives it's name from ships where the motive power - the wind - can be used with varying degrees of thrust.

Perhaps these diagrams from my plan book will explain better...?
 






 

 

Is this some help? (I WISH I'd built my windmill before the price of timber went up...!)

Best wishes, Peter.

Peter Archbold, Ashburton, South Island, New Zealand.

 

Thank you, Neil for taking the interest to ask the question.   A big thank you to Peter for answering.

 

By 1868 and 1882 Edmund Lephard's miller was Henry Ball.

 

The Heene Windmill (TQ 132 028) in nearby Worthing c.1900


The windmill that once stood in the fields to the south of Heene Road was next used by Charles Bolting.  He own a bakery at nearby Egremont Place.   Bolting had perhaps died or given up the business by 1893 and the windmill then stood forlorn and derelict until its demolition ten years later, in June 1903.

Even by the 1930s the site of the Heene Windmill was still in evidence on the southern side of Mill Road..... between numbers 33 and 37 just to the west of Grand Avenue.

 

Continue if you would like to read about the Highdown Windmill — A Miller's Tale

 

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THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.

 

 

E-mail: valeriemartin@findonvillage.com