Sails the on Bursledon Windmill

8 December 2014

Usually Monday is mostly about cooking and shopping, with a little cleaning thrown in for good measure. Outside the window the morning sky was bright and blue, the perfect weather for windmill visiting, and, as I’d already made a tasty lamb casserole on Sunday afternoon, I decided everything else could wait.

Bursledon Windmill is the only working windmill in Hampshire and, since February 2012, it hasn’t actually been working at all. The wind shaft had come to the end of its natural life and needed replacing so the wooden lattices that make up the sails were removed in preparation. For more than two and a half years the mill stood idle but, right at the end of November 2014, the work was finally completed just in time for the mill’s two hundredth birthday. Of course the grand reopening and birthday celebrations happened while I was flying through the Channel Tunnel so I’d missed it.

The most direct route is rather boring if I’m honest. It’s a long straight path beside a busy dual carriageway with three long, steep hills. My first choice for walking to the windmill would normally be to take the woodland trail from Millers Pond through to the the top of the last hill. It might add another mile and a bit to the journey each way but it’s far more Interesting, not to mention peaceful. With the unseasonably warm wet weather we’ve been having of late though this didn’t seem like the best of plans. Most of the walk runs through fairly boggy ground beside a stream, getting half way and having to turn back because of flooding didn’t appeal to me somehow.

The only interesting part of the three mile walk was right at the beginning as I passed through the village churchyard. There was a quick stop at Pappy’s grave and another to have a closer look at a peculiar looking spiky fungus in the grass. It may be Lichenomphalia umbellifera but then again… It was only chance that stopped me treading on it.

The fungus was the last thing of interest I saw until I reached Windmill Lane. The first sight of the White sails against the deep blue sky made all the chilly walking worthwhile. After so many anticipation filled visits that ended in disappointment, I hadn’t been convinced they would be there.

Sitting on a hay bale in front of Chineham Barn was a very odd and colourful looking scarecrow. Perhaps he was left over from the birthday celebrations. Leaning back against the crooked old fence I took a couple of photos of the majestic looking mill. Sadly the sails weren’t turning because it’s only open on Sunday’s but I was happy enough just to see the curve of those beautiful latticed sails with the canvas still furled.

So that was it, windmill seen, job done. It seemed an awful lot of effort to walk three miles just for a minute or two of staring at a windmill I’ve seen many times before even if it now had sails. It may have a spooky ghost story attached to it but I told you that back in March 2013 and reprised it in October. Of course there was always the sixteenth century Chineham Barn.

The barn is a rather lovely old building overlooking the mill pond, anyone would think it had always stood there but, in fact, it hasn’t. Back in 1984 it used to stand on a farm in Chineham, Basingstoke but it was due to be demolished. Instead it was saved, dismantled and rebuilt to be used as a visitor centre for the mill. Around the barn and pond is a lovely rustic old fence and on that fence some rather splendid lichen.

Within the little enclosure there’s also an interesting eighteenth century granary. This was rescued and moved at the same time as the barn but from a different place. The Hiltingbury Granary was once one of the outbuildings at Hiltingbury Farm in Chandlers Ford. These days it’s used for storage which is basically what it was always meant for anyway.

The windmill was what I’d come to see though so I walked along a little further to get a few more shots of those wonderful sails. In an effort to get the whole mill in I walked along the fence towards the granary. On the grass the old wind shaft sneaked into the shot. By this time I was close to the gate to the woodland walk.

Last time I attempted a walk in those woods some very scary dogs appeared out of nowhere and I’d abandoned the whole idea. A quick and rather nervous look around told me there were no dogs anywhere to be seen this time so I thought I might give it another go. What happened will have to wait for another day though.