Site overview
Elderkin's Mill, also known as Fallard's Mill, is the Grade II listed tower windmill behind 40 West End at Whittlesey. It was a tower corn mill and is recorded as one of the surviving remnants of Whittlesey's once extensive windmill landscape. By the late nineteenth century Whittlesey had numerous windmills, but by 1929 G. H. Fletcher described his mill as the only one left in the parish.
The tower was listed in 1978 and later recorded in very poor condition, with concern over internal collapse. It was photographed as a derelict capless tower in 2006 and was later given a new ogee-style roof.
Map
History
Elderkin's Mill stands to the rear of 40 West End, Whittlesey, close to Stonald Road. It is a tower corn mill and is also recorded under the name Fallard's Mill. Whittlesey had thirteen windmills in operation in the late nineteenth century, and this surviving tower represents the reduced remains of that larger milling landscape.
The mill is associated with G. H. Fletcher in the late 1920s. In December 1929 Fletcher wrote that his mill was the only one left in the parish and that it had been rebuilt about seventy years earlier. He also recorded that the fan had been struck off by a violent thunderstorm on the previous day. This gives the mill a clear place in the last phase of Whittlesey's wind-powered corn-milling history.
The tower was listed at Grade II in 1978 as the Tower Windmill to the rear of Number 40, West End. Later conservation reporting identified it as Elderkin's Mill or Fallard's Mill and recorded its condition as very poor, with concern over internal collapse and possible surviving machinery. A 2006 photograph showed the structure as a derelict capless tower mill beside West End. By December 2008 it had been given a new ogee-style roof, securing the tower as a visible remnant of Whittlesey's former windmill industry.
Timeline
Last Whittlesey parish mill recorded
Fan damaged by thunderstorm
Grade II listing
Capless tower photographed
New roof added
Sources and records
Windmill World site entry
Capturing Cambridge article
Cambridgeshire Watermills and Windmills at Risk report
Geograph photographic record
Mills Archive site record