Author: admin

Cream Teas & Cake Event Raises £300

Cream Tea EventMany of the good folks of Crich look down onto the windmill at Heage and enjoy seeing her working- not standing like a pepper pot with no sails!

A group of the members of the Trefoil Guild and Muddlealong Groups therefore decided to do something to help restore her back to her former glory. They organised a cream tea and cakes event, with some side stalls , and between them raised the admirable sum of £300 pounds for the Trouble at Mill Appeal.

A cheque was duly  presented at the mill to Lynn Allen (Friends of Windmill) by Hazel Pilgrim, with her colleagues Margaret Upton , Di Fretwell  and Stella Gill in attendance with Meg Tarlton (Sec. Heage Windmill Trust) looking on.

Lynn said: ‘We are always so grateful for all contributions to the repair fund.  Getting the windmill back to working order cannot come quickly enough for us.’

We were also presented with some excellent woodcuts and paintings of local windmills (including our own, of course) by a well known local artist, which will be framed and shortly offered for sale in the mill visitor centre. Another donation which will raise funds for the repairs!

Adrian Farmer opens Heage Windmill 2016 season

2016 Opening - Adrian Farmer 001On a cold, blustery morning at Heage Windmill, Heage Windmill’s 2016 season opener Adrian Farmer warmed the cockles by praising the volunteers of the mill for their ‘astounding’ efforts in not only creating a great visitor attraction but also raising in excess of £40,000 towards the restoration of the sails and cap structure, only eight months after launching the appeal.

‘You should all be very proud’ declared Adrian, who knows all about volunteering, having been Highly Commended in Visit England’s 2012 Tourism Superstar Awards.

2016 Opening - Adrian Farmer 006Adrian, coordinator of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, arrived at the windmill in style, driving a vintage tractor kindly provided by John Allsop of Belper.

Chair of Trustees Piers Bostock welcomed the gathering of volunteers, friends, visitors and guests – including the High Sheriff of Derbyshire Oliver Stephenson and his wife Fiona.

The Chair of the Friends of Heage Windmill, Angela Ward (wearing a fetching furry hat), then introduced Adrian, listing his multifarious achievements, including his several books about Belper and the Derwent Valley and his close association with Belper, which began when he joined the Belper News as a 23 year-old, making him the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

2016 Opening - Adrian Farmer 009After cutting the ribbon and declaring the season open, Adrian and his wife Mary were presented gifts by Heage Windmill’s very own Easter bunny Wosemary Wabbit.

It’s usual to present the guest opener with a bag of Heage Windmill flour.  However, with the sails having been removed last summer for urgent repairs, founder Trustee Alan Gifford handed Adrian an empty brown paper bag but which bore a label promising to fill it with flour once the millers start milling again.

2016 Opening - Adrian Farmer 016Ironically, in spite of the wind, one miller said that it was actually too windy to turn the sails!

The sails should be turning again at the end of April.  In the meantime, the windmill is open for visits every weekend plus Bank Holidays through until October.

Visitors have a chance to view the sails close up as they are now on site.

Pictured left are some of the volunteers who all helped with the restoration of the sails.

Here are more photos from the opening.

Progress on Heage Windmill Repairs

Weather beam Work 4May AS (6)It was last August when wet rot was found in some of the major timbers of Heage windmill and we were forced to stop producing flour.

It was a shock to all our volunteers but a clear decision was made: ‘Let’s get her working again – asap!’

A huge fund raising programme was set up and an assessment was made as to what work could be done by mill volunteers against the initial estimate of about £90,000.

Weather beam on May 3- 16 (2)When  the cost was more refined it was in fact  closer to £80,000. Fund raising has brought in £54,000 so far and with existing  mill reserves we can just about cover the costs, although the essential fund raising is still going on.

The sails were removed and painted off site by volunteers over the winter and are now back at the mill.  The millwrights have made a new fan staging and fantail (which turns the sails to face into the wind.) They have also made replacements for all the rotten parts discovered and have started to re-assemble the mill, whilst the cap has been repainted by volunteers.

DSC01470The new fan staging is now back in place and a major move forward has been the replacement of the old weather beam (which supports the windshaft and sails).

There is more hidden work to do before the sails go back but hopefully, by the end of this month, all will be completed and the mill will be working again.

 

Special Events at Heage Windmill

Sat/Sun 14th/15th May – National Mills Weekend with Tractor Day on the Sunday. Nunsfield Radio Group will be there on both days.

Sat/Sun 25th/26th June – Flower Festival.  This is to be held at St Luke’s Church, Heage with flowers also on display at the windmill.

Sunday July 10th – Bike Day with giant Bric-a-Brac sale.

Sunday October 30th – Cobweb Day.  This is also the final day of opening in the 2016 season.

Sunday December 4th – Santa Day.  More details nearer the time.

Heage Windmill Repairs Report

Heage Windmill Sail Restoration - Feb 2016 12More progress is being made on the repair and restoration of our sails.

The millwrights are working on the major repair while the mill volunteers are moving well with the refurbishing and painting of the sails and are approaching completing all of the planned work.

Heage Windmill Sail Restoration - Feb 2016 35They have disassembled the shutters on the old sails, cut out the dead wood on the whips, and have nearly finished painting all of the sails and shutters.

18 coats of paint were needed for the six sails – 3 coats per sail.

They have also been re-assembling the shutters and as each of the shutters is sponsored – there is a number on each referring to a sponsor – those numbers need to be re-stencilled.

It’s hard work but the hope is that all will be ready for the 2016 opening on Saturday March 26th.

 

Amber Valley Drinkers Dig Deep for Windmill Appeal

Amber Valley CAMRA Presentation
Tony Cooper (holding cheque to the right) pictured with Amber Valley CAMRA members Mike Wallis, Jane Wallis, Chris Rogers (Chair), Simon Riddington and David Harper

Heage Windmill’s Trouble at Mill Appeal (TAMA) is £348 better off thanks to the Amber Valley CAMRA Beer Festival held recently.

Heage Windmill Society Trustee Tony Cooper – himself a CAMRA member – contacted Amber Valley CAMRA to ask if he could shake a tin at their annual beer fest.  The next thing he knew, the Trouble at Mill Appeal had been adopted as the Festival’s nominated ‘good cause.’

The result was a collection of £348 which was presented to Tony, on behalf of the windmill, at AV CAMRA’s branch meeting at the Spanker in Nether Heage.

‘AV CAMRA really took the mill’s appeal on board,’ says Tony.  ‘As well as having a display desk at the festival, we had a whole page in the free festival programme where our appeal was explained, and the CAMRA cash desk volunteers were collecting cash from departing drinkers throughout the four-day festival.’

As Tony continues: ‘Thanks to the generosity of local people and the goodwill and support from groups like AV CAMRA, we now have sufficient funds to get started with the majority of the work involved in repairing the sails.’

Choir to raise money for Windmill

BelCanto ChorusAmber Valley-based BelCanto Chorus will be performing an evening of contemporary music in aid of Heage Windmill’s Trouble at Mill Appeal at St Luke’s Church, Heage on Friday, April 15th at 7.30 pm.

Tickets are £5, available at the windmill from March 26th or by calling 0750 535 5620.

Heage Windmill Sails Away

Heage Windmill - Sails Off Nov 26 001It was a suitably dreary, damp day at 8-00 am on Thursday,26th November when the crane arrived at the windmill to play its part in the removal of the sails – the first stage in repair of the mill following the discovery of wet rot in some key structural components.

Fortunately the wind was negligible, a critical requirement when handling large components designed to catch the wind!

Heage Windmill - Sails Off Nov 26 004A local contractor, Dave Nicholls and his mate worked hard to release the eleven huge bolts on the first sail which fasten the sails to the iron cross – the largest was about 14” long and 1 ¼” diameter.

The crane supported the sail whilst this was done and by 9-30 the first one was being guided to its initial resting place, laying flat on wooden pallets.

Heage Windmill - Sails Off Nov 26 007The volunteer team then removed the wooden leader boards from the sails and made the control rod for the shutters secure.

Meanwhile the millwrights started to remove the next sail and the whole process was repeated six times.

All the sails were then repositioned to stand vertically ready for the next stage – transport to a dry workshop where they will be carefully checked and any repairs carried before painting – again by the mill volunteers.

By 1-00 pm all the sails were off and stacked and the workers gathered round to celebrate the successful completion of this phase of the work.

The mill however looked strangely bare without her sails… But the sails WILL turn again.

Here is a gallery of the day the sails were transported from the windmill to the workshop.

 

Santa Day – Christmas Quiz Answers

Heage Windmill Christmas Quiz Answers 2015

  1. Comet, Cupid, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Donner & Blitzen
  2. 26th December
  3. Michael Collins
  4. Katrina & The Waves. Shine A Light
  5. 364
  6. Seashell
  7. Little sausages wrapped in rashers of streaky bacon
  8. Turkey
  9. Indian Ocean
  10. Lilly The Pink
  11. Babes In The Wood
  12. Alice Fitzwarren
  13. Capricorn
  14. Space Probe Beagle 2
  15. Baby turkey
  16. Tinsel
  17. The change from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar resulted in the loss off 11 calendar days.
  18. Irving Berlin
  19. Norway
  20. Tom Smith
  21. Mince pies
  22. 1988 was Mistletoe & Wine. 1990 was Saviours Day
  23. Vorsprung Durch Technik
  24. Gary Lineker
  25. Comedian Mel Smith & singer Kim Wilde
  26. The last Sunday before the start of Advent when traditionally Christmas puddings were made.
  27. Tom Baker
  28. FAB 1
  29. Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon & John
  30. Named after the first five American astronauts in space – Scott Carpenter, Virgil Grissom, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper & John Glenn.
  31. Flowers In The Rain by The Move
  32. Earth Song
  33. UNICEF
  34. Australia
  35. Cratchit
  36. 1 single flake at any one of several chosen UK locations
  37. Gary Jules & Michael Andrews
  38. Wind In The Willows
  39. Raisins
  40. Once In Royal David’s City