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This is an excerpt from the paper entitled "Horizontal Windmills" by Rex Wailes, published in the Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 1967-68 Vol 40.
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In this paper the Author introduces us to horizontal wind power over the centuries, with descriptions and illustrations of horizontal mills, as far apart as China, the West Indies, Persia and London. He describes horizontal turbine mills, articulated wind wheels, shrouded wind wheels, horizontal sail mills, turbine shutter mills, horizontal draft mills, draft machines and engines, modern horizontal windmills and rotating signs. The paper is illustrated with 21 fascinating plates, ranging from Veranzio's drawings of 1595 to contemporary photographs of mills in Seistan, China, Liguria and the Turks and Caicos islands.
The description of Battersea windmill makes particularly lively reading:
Battersea Horizontal Mill, built in 1788 by Thomas Fowler to the designs of Captain Stephen Hooper of Margate.
Mr William Ringrose was for many years the Engineer of the Battersea Roller Mills, and gave me the following account of it:
"The Mill, Bolingbroke House, the Distillery and the Oast House were built on the part of the site next to St Mary's Church, Battersea, on the edge of the River Thames, and a gate led down to the river. The house was used as a dwelling house and was a fine structure with rooms overlooking the Thames, and it contained one room panelled with cedar in which it is said Pope wrote his Essay on Man. It was known as Pope's Parlour and was dismantled in about 1922 and sold to an American lady, together with one of the ceilings of another room which was hand-painted stucco. The fine old wide staircase was taken down about the same time and sent to the late Mr Rowland Ranke's home in Aldwick Place, near Bognor.The mill was approximately 140 feet high, 55 feet in diameter at the base, 45 feet diameter at the top, and on the top was a solid copper ball approximately 2 feet in diameter, which was used up to 1920 as a corner-wallstop, taken by mistake for concrete when it was sold for scrap. There were ninety double planks placed perpendicularly 80 feet high and radiating from the main shaft, while the outer structure was formed of ninety-odd shutters like a vertical venetian blind and operated by ropes to open and close; these were about the same size as the inside planks.
There were six pairs of stones and room for two more, but only four pairs were retained when the mill was demolished. These were installed in the flour mill which was built on the site and run by a firm named Dives, later Mayhew and Dives. The firm then changed to Mark Mayhew Limited and became the property of the late Mr Rowland Rank in 1914. The drive to the stones was from an internal gear on the rim of the flywheel and, when it was decided to remodel the existing plant, four pairs of stones, with new parts added, were installed on the provender plant of the new mill. The 6 inch square cast iron layshaft was turned down at the end and a Morse silent chain drive and clutch fitted, still retaining the old shaft, hurstings, and staked-on gears with their applewood cogs, and they remained in use until the plant was dismantled after World War II."
The horizontal windmill at Battersea, built 1788 John Timbs, in his Curiosities of London tells us that the mill resembled a giant packing case, which gave rise to an old story that 'when the Emperor of Russia was in England he took a fancy to Battersea Church and determined to carry it off to Russia, and had this large packing case made for it; but as the inhabitants refused to let the church be carried away, the case remained on the spot where it was deposited'. The mill was demolished in 1844.
The complete text of this paper (21 pages, 26 illustrations) can be purchased on line from our archive.
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