Monument record MDR11147 - West Hallam flour mill (site of), West Hallam

Ruins of the old West Hallam windmill still remained in 1969 in the form of a brick base. The windmill had been demolished in 1916 as it was unsafe. It was built in 1593 and is referred to in the parish register for 1698. (1) West Hallam windmill was erected at the village crossroads. The date, 1593, was formed by nails in the woodwork to the left of the entrance, but its significance is unclear. The mill is shown on Burdett's map of 1767 and it is listed by John Farey in 1808. It also appears on the 1836 Ordnance Survey map. An old photograph shows that the mill was built on a brick round house, with external piers for the crosstrees, and appeared to have had rollers between the buck and the round house. The large buck had a rounded roof and was approached up a steep ladder. There was no fantail fitted and no sign of a tailpole on the old photograph. There were no sails shown and the cladding on the buck had partly gone. The Heath family were the last working tenants and they fitted a steam engine on the north side of the mill some years before they left. When the father, William, died in 1883, the business was carried on by the son, Gershaw, but very quickly the trade disappeared and he had to leave. The end of the mill came in 1884 when an advertisement in the Ilkeston Pioneer offered to sell by auction: 'West Hallam Mill, near Ilkeston, 8 HP horizontal engine, 12 HP Steam Boiler, piping etc, dressing machine, corn screen, four pairs of stones, sundry useful articles for mills'. The steam engine was moved to nearby Stanley and the windmill became increasingly ruinous. The buck was removed in 1915 but parts of the round house remained until the 1960s when it was demolished.