Rushden Research Group: Windmill

Windmill

1880s Map showing the Windmill, Skue Bridge, The Moors with Osier Bed, and Hay Way

The Domesday Book in 1086 recorded in Rushden: There was a mill at 10 shillings and a meadow of 30 acres.

Dr Stephen Fisher, 24th September, 1920

Windmills - Until recently one windmill yet remained to Rushden, a quaintly picturesque object on the Bedfordshire border to the left of the Wymington-road.

There was another mill, however, that existed within living memory, but now only evidenced by the name “Windmill-road.” The mill stood near the T head, where that road joins Glassbrook-road. To the right, at this juncture, stands well back in a garden a white house that has evidently had its end cut away to allow the road to pass at that point. This house is the Mill House, now surrounded by other houses, but in the days of the Mill it stood far off from “the maddening crowd,” a house and a mill in a lonely field. (Note: The doorstep at the entrance to this house is one of the grinding stones from the old mill. Editor, “R.E.”)

Ditchford Mill was also associated with the Achurch family.

Samuel Achurch was described as a farmer and miller when he made his will in 1819. His will was not proved until 1840, and at a sale following his death it was described as a post mill. The Achurch family was in Rushden from the early 17C.

In 1865 Alfred Achurch aged 24, son of Robert the miller, married Mary Stockley at the Parish Church.

About 1885 the Mill that stood in Windmill Road area was demolished, and some of the wood used to make a staircase and porch at 10 Church Street.

No 10 Church Street - Oak Lodge - built about 1885

Extract from a 1951 newsclip: “In another two years the house in Church Street, Oak Lodge – with its staircase and porch made from the oak from the Windmill mentioned in Domesdaye Book – was in the market, and father bought that and across the drive erected a retail shop with a workshop behind.

The mill house survived and in 1894 a Working Men's Club was opened in the premises. Four years later they built a new club on the site and has an impression of a windmill in the date stone:

The old mill house

The Old Windmill Club built in 1898

more Windmills

Green's Windmill