I am a Canadian ex-pat who grew up in Hove many moons ago. Each Sunday afternoon the family would walk from our home in Prinsep Road ending up at Hove Cemetery to place flowers on my grandfather's grave. In good weather the walk often extended around the neighborhood and one of my favorites was to the windmill, not so much to see the mill but to look at a garden very close by which had a fish pond and a huge collection of gnomes! I think I must hav been a gnome-a-holic, since I knew the location of every one on Old Shoreham Road, and round about! I wonder how many little girls would be as easily pleased nowadays. Maybe that garden is still there, as I recall it was about two houses south of the boy's grammar school drive.

I now live in Shoreham but my family lived on the farm around the mill from the mid 1800s until the council took it over. My great-grandfather, George, was miller from 1882 until the mill stopped working in 1897. I belong to the Friends of West Blatchington Mill and help the team of volunteers who look after things. Somewhere I saw a census report which stated that the population increased by 1 from 1910 until 1937: that would have been my aunt Violet, who was born there in 1913 and left in 1937. Peter Hill, the chairman of Friends of West Blatchington Mill, does a wonderful job of keeping everything going and I am pleased to help keep this wonderful monument to the past in good condition.

I live in Hangleton Road and go to Blatchington Mill School. I walk past this site several times a week

Further details about this mill and other Sussex mills are on www.sussexmillsgroup.org.uk