Seen every morning from my window

West Blatchington Windmill
From a private collection

Every morning when I wake up, I look through the window and see the mill. Throughout the seasons I enjoy its beauty, and its surroundings.

Once a year there is a Windmill Day – brass band, pony rides, stalls, corn grinding, Southdown sheep… We have an opportunity to climb to the top and see for miles over the Downs. Local residents, neighbours, families and friends all enjoy the Day. The sun always shines.

John Constable painted the mill in 1825, and it remains alive and kicking.

Comments about this page

  • 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.

    By Patricia Overs (20/08/2003)
  • 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.

    By Dave Whittington (29/03/2005)
  • I live in Hangleton Road and go to Blatchington Mill School. I walk past this site several times a week

    By Sam (15/09/2005)
  • Further details about this mill and other Sussex mills are on http://www.sussexmillsgroup.org.uk

    By Sussex Mills Group (09/01/2006)
  • My mother lives in Hangelton (as I did for 30 years) and I have passed by the windmill many times. Can anyone tell me what they are going to be doing to it as the sails have been removed?

    By Wayne Wareham (06/09/2007)
  • Patricia – I grew up in Holmes Avenue in the 1960s and remember the gnomes! There were quite a few gnomeries in that part of Hove, with the best being in Meadway Crescent. It was a family joke that the sails blew off the windmill the night my sister was born. That would have been 1966. I don’t remember that, but I do recall a sail falling off later, and also the lovely row of elm trees gradually falling victim to Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970s. Ah, memories…. I’m sorry to read that the windmill is sail-less again and I hope it is soon restored to its former glory.

    By Ruth Barker (26/01/2009)
  • Ruth – Don’t worry about the sails. They were taken down for work to be done. As you may know by now they are back up and looking good. I went to the AGM of Friends of Blatchington Mill on the 19th Feb 09 at St Peters Hall. There was a good crowd there with Peter Hill still in the Chair. By the way it was the “Friends” who paid £20,000 for the repairs I have just taked about. The pond Pat Overs talks about in Holmes Avenue was I think the one in the house 103? with a large willow tree overhanging it. I have always thought that at one time the family by the name of Paris lived there and they were the same family who ran the buildings business.

    By David Smart (22/02/2009)
  • Hi Guys- as a young lad during the late 1950s early 1960s I lived in Hangelton Road, then Holmes Avenue, before emigrating to Australia in 1964. I went to West Blatchington County Primary School then onto Neville Secondary Modern (as they were named at that time) and have many fond memories of the mill when going for bike rides with my friend. I think I can recall the gnomes. It is nice to see that the Old Mill still stands, sadly I feel that we are sometimes prone to be rid of our history all too quickly, don’t let anything happen to it. One day I will return to the UK with my wife to show her my old stomping grounds.

    By James Roncoli (25/04/2009)
  • Hi James, I lived in Clarke Ave from 1955 to 1961 and I went to the same schools as you except I had to spend my 1st year in Senior school at the Knoll because Nevill Road wasn’t open at the time. I was in 2-1 when I started there and Mr Baker was our form teacher through to year four when I left school to join the Royal Marines. I passed the Mill to and from school and a great sight it was too. Did you know Sue and Ann McArther who lived very close to the Grammer school entrance? If you would like to get intouch, I too live in Australia, south of Brisbane at Waterford West. My email is; stanmill@bigpond.net.au – would like to hear from you to talk about the good old days.

    By Stanly Brand (04/03/2010)
  • We moved to Hangleton Road in the early 50s and the Mill was a real treasure to us.  As an 8 or 9 year old a friend and I were playing nearby and the door was open, this was obviously an opportunity not to be missed and we peered in anyway. A friendly chap who was working inside asked us if we would like to look round and we went to the top.  Later, as a grammar school boy, the mill was proudly worn on our badges. And Stanley – I do remember the McArthurs – they were friends of another friend of mine, Jane Armstrong.  Jane’s mother held her 90th birthday party actually in the mill, and had 90 guests and I was delighted to have been there inside the mill yet again.

    By Rodger Olive (03/04/2014)
  • Yes the Holmes Avenue house with pond and willow tree was owned by HJ Paris who built many houses, including Tudor Close, my old home. I was friends with son Malcolm Paris, who had rich American friends such that he was sent Superman comics and all sorts of unobtainables. The Paris house had a very unusual curved front window to the lounge.
    I think I climbed every elm tree in the avenue, with Terry Chambers and Robert Hawksworth. In these Elf n Safety days folk would be horrified at the heights we reached, totally fearless.

    By David Langley (01/05/2023)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.