In September 1985 my predecessor as Somerset editor, Mr Shorrocks, included a paper by Nick Corcos on the ‘The date of Worlebury windmill’ on pages 447-9 of volume 31 of SDNQ. In this Corcos shows how written evidence of the mill’s early history cannot be found before 1705, although he proposed that ‘a medieval mill stood on or close to the site of the surviving tower’.1 Evidence from three sources shows how there must have been two windmills on Worlebury in the late 16th century, one of which was located in the parish of Worle and the other in the hamlet of Milton in the parish of Kewstoke.
Four pieces of evidence add a little to the picture. Firstly, a case in Chancery, from the early 16th century, between John Symondes, late of Axbridge, yeoman and Thomas Templer, of Milton, husbandman, mentions the detention of deeds relating to a windmill and land at Worle.2 This shows how there was a windmill in the parish of Worle in the early 16th century and could have been the one that was ‘lately by accident burnt down’ some time before 1764.3 Secondly, a deed of 1620 refers to ‘one windmill and millsteed . . . upon Stepers Hill’ at Milton in the parish of Kewstoke, which at the time was in the ownership of the Chandler alias Heale family.4 Both appear on Strachey’s map of Somerset, published in 1736, as distinct buildings located on the hill at Worlebury, one either side of the main road running from Weston to Worle.5
The third piece of evidence is more obscure. In 1589 an atlas of navigational charts and sailing directions was published in Amsterdam, in which was a chart of the Bristol Channel. On this particular chart are three tower-like symbols lying off the coast at Weston-super-Mare.6 It is not clear exactly what these symbols are but in 1625, the fourth piece of evidence, another atlas of nautical charts, was published in Amsterdam, which contains a chart with a clearer picture. In this atlas the three symbols are shown as windmills, one at Uphill and two on an area of raised land near the coast.7 I believe the area of raised land is an incorrect depiction of Worlebury, which correctly shows two windmills upon it, although the land is incorrectly orientated.8
1. N. Corcos, ‘The date of Worlebury windmill’ in SDNQ, vol. 31, 447-9.
2. The National Archives (T.N.A.), C 1/359/12 Symondes v Templer, 1504-1515.
3. Corcos, ‘Worlebury windmill’, 447.
4. S.H.C., DD/MVB/72 1620.
5. J. Strachey, Somersetshire survey’d and protracted by Mr. Strachey (London, 1736). See also SHC, DD/SH/1/89 for an annotated version of Strachey’s map covering this area of the county.
6. L. Waghenaer, Pars Prima Spiegel der Zee-Vaert (Amsterdam, 1589).
7. J. Blaeu, The sea-mirrour . . . (Amsterdam, 1625).
8. For a more detailed analysis of this subject see my forthcoming volume for the Somerset Record Society on charts and sailing directions of the Somerset coast.
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