Piddlehinton

The Windmill

The Millers William Moore (1841)

Present site condition :

Notes and comments

In the Piddle valley some 5 miles north east of Dorchester, the Tithe Apportionment of 1838 clearly shows a water mill in this village with William Moore living in House Mill Stable & garden (ref 60 & 20) (gr SY 714 974).

However, it would seem that he also owned a windmill there three years later, as he is recorded ^[1] in May 1841 as insuring "the stock and utensils of his windmill (including cloths for the mill sails and three pairs of mill stones " for £60 with the Sun Insurance Co. In the C20th, there was a windpump near East Farm which has since disappeared^[2].

Whereas the TA reference is right in the village where the River Piddle flows through, there are several knolls to either side of the village which would appear suitable as a windmill site. No foundations remain, there was a later C20th windpump near East Farm buildings.^[3]

There were numerous watermills along the Piddle valley whose rivers and streams drain into the water meadow areas surrounding Puddletown. It is interesting to note that perhaps William Moore had actually taken steps with his windmill to avoid his watermill's problems of intermittent supply and conflict with the water meadows.

Louis Ruegg in his Farming of Dorsetshire^[4] makes some interesting observations in quoting a suitably qualified gentleman of the time :

........."a good windmill on the hill above this bottom would effectively and constantly meet the wants of the immediate neighbourhood, whilst emancipating a valuable portion of water meadow from continual interruption".

Perhaps this comment prompted the construction of the windmill ?

TO DO : (check TA for other land that he owned ??).

^[1] Horn, Pamela Labouring Life in the Victorian Countryside, 1976 p100

^[2] Dorset Books The Story of Piddlehinton, 1990, p 50. As well as noting the modern windpump, mention is also made of the 1841 windmill and that no foundations of this mill can be located.

^[3] The Story of Piddlehinton Dorset Books 1990 p50. Quotes the insurance record and comments that

a windmill would not have a logical explanation and that it would have been a departure from Dorset Custom.

^[4] Ruegg, Louis H, Farming of Dorsetshire Journal of the Royal Agric Soc XV part II No XXXIV, 1954,

p482.