Crux Easton Wind Engine Crux Easton · Hampshire · England

Crux Easton Wind Engine was erected in 1891 or 1891/2 for the Earl of Carnarvon. It was made by John Wallis Titt of Warminster and is a rare surviving example of a Simplex self-regulating geared wind engine. The engine was installed beside a small former mill house and well house, and its main purpose was to pump water from a well about 410 feet deep. The machinery could also be adapted to grind grain and drive a circular saw, giving the site a mixed pumping, milling, and estate-service function.

The listed structure includes the iron wind engine, steel tower, and former mill house. The wind wheel is recorded as 20 feet in diameter, carried on a hexagonal steel tower, with 48 adjustable canvas sails and a fantail to turn the engine into the wind. The associated mill house is of red brick and is thought to pre-date the wind engine.

The engine was last used in the 1920s. Its sails were removed in the 1960s and placed in storage, but the structure survived. Formal protection followed in 1991, when the wind engine and former mill house were listed at Grade II. Restoration was later undertaken by the Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society and Hampshire Mills Group, working with the British Engineerium at Hove for the Crux Easton Wind Engine Conservation Trust. Funding included Heritage Lottery Fund support and grants from local and charitable bodies. The restored wind engine was officially opened on 25 September 2002, returning a rare late nineteenth-century wind-powered engine to working order.