Thank you for the response to my shots of Chesterton Windmill yesterday. I am pleased they were liked so much, as I am pleased with the way they turned out.
I will continue to catch up with your projects over the next few days.
I thought a little bit about the history of this windmill may be interesting.
The windmill is one of Warwickshire's most famous landmarks, standing on a hilltop overlooking the village of Chesterton for nearly 350 years, near the Roman Fosse Way and about five miles (8 km) south-east of Warwick. It was built in 1632-1633, probably by Sir Edward Peyto, who was Lord of the Chesterton Manor House. At this time John Stone, a pupil of Inigo Jones, was in Chesterton, designing the new Manor House, and he probably helped with the Windmill as well.
It is built of hard local limestone, with sandstone detailing, on a shallow platform of 71 feet 9 inches (21.87 m) in diameter. The mill tower with a cap height of 36 feet (11 m), unique worldwide in structure and mechanics, is supported on six semicircular arches, on piers, the outer faces of which are arcs of circles radiating from a common centre. A sandstone string course surmounts the six arches and runs round the tower, below the windows. There are four windows in the tower, two small and two much larger with stone mullioned windows. A three-light window set in the roof on the opposite side to the sails, has a small plaque above it with the letters "E. P. 1632".
A stone tower similar to Chesterton Windmill exists in Newport, RI, U.S.A. The commonly accepted theory is that it was built by Benedict Arnold around 1676 after a previous wooden mill was blown down in 1675. It is not quite the same as Chesterton Windmill, having eight round pillars, but it was very similar. The Arnold family, whose place of origin is disputed but may have been either Leamington or further down the Fosse Way, near Ilchester in Somerset, emigrated to Rhode Island in 1635 where Benedict became governor in 1663. This, together with the documentary evidence for the Tower's use as a mill in Arnold's will and the lack of archaeological evidence for the site having been used before the mid-17th century, has led to the generally accepted theory that the Newport Tower was based on Chesterton Windmill. However, some historians, as well as amateur researchers, dispute this theory and have claimed that it is several centuries older, thus being evidence of a pre-Columbian (Viking) settlement in New England.
