Somerley Mill is a grade II listed smock mill

Smock mill

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...

 at Earnley

Earnley

Earnley is a civil and ecclesiastical parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located four miles south-west of Chichester, and lies on the south coast of England...

, Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 which is under restoration.

History

Somerley Mill, was first mentioned in 1803. It was raised in 1827, with a brick base being built under the mill. It was working until 1942. Currently, only the tower stands, the cap having been removed and a temporary roof placed over the top of the smock.

Description

Somerley Mill is a three storey smock mill on a single storey brick base. It had a Beehive cap and was winded by a fantail

Windmill fantail

A Fantail is a small windmill mounted at right angles to the sails, at the rear of the windmill, and which turns the cap automatically to bring it into the wind. The fantail was patented in 1745 by Edmund Lee, a blacksmith working at Brockmill Forge near Wigan, England, and perfected on mills...

. When working it had two Common sails

Windmill sail

Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different designs, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails.-Jib sails:...

 and two Spring sails. The mill drove two pairs of overdrift millstone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

s, with a third pair worked by engine.

External links

• Windmill World Page on Earnley Windmill.

Online version