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Farm mill use recorded
The structure is recorded as a tower farm mill, probably used for threshing, although its original function is uncertain.
Site overview
Spindlestone Ducket Mill stands near Belford and Outchester. It is recorded in windmill inventories as a tower farm mill, although its original use is uncertain and it may also have functioned as a duckett or dovecote. The structure is described as an eighteenth-century tapering cylindrical stone tower with a conical slate roof.
It was later converted to holiday-cottage use. Modern photographic records from 1999, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2025 show the surviving structure under the Spindlestone or Outchester Ducket name. The available evidence identifies the tower form, uncertain farm-mill or dovecote function, later conversion and survival, but does not provide a secure working chronology or machinery record.
Map
Map markers and directions links are provided for location reference only and do not indicate public access or permission to enter a site.
No site photograph is currently available. Images will be added as field visits are carried out.
History
Spindlestone Ducket Mill is a surviving tower structure near Belford, also appearing in records as Outchester Ducket. It is recorded in windmill sources as a tower farm mill, but its original purpose is not certain. The structure may have been used as a farm windmill, probably for threshing, although it may instead have been a duckett or dovecote.
Local and heritage descriptions identify it as an eighteenth-century tapering cylindrical stone tower with a conical Welsh-slate roof. It was later converted to a holiday cottage. Modern photographic records show the structure at Spindlestone and Outchester across several dates, confirming continuing survival.
The accessible sources do not provide a named builder, machinery description, operating dates, or closure sequence. The safest account is therefore that the site preserves a converted eighteenth-century tower structure traditionally recorded as a farm windmill but with an uncertain original function.
Timeline
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Converted to holiday cottage
The former tower structure was later converted to holiday-cottage use.
1700–1799
Stone tower built
The tapering cylindrical stone tower is recorded as eighteenth-century in date.
1999
Converted tower photographed
A photographic record showed the surviving Spindlestone Ducket structure.
Sources and records
Windmill World entry: Belford windmill
Mills Archive entry: Spindlestone Ducket Mill, Belford
British listed building reference: Spindlestone Ducket
Geograph photographic records: Outchester Ducket and Spindlestone Ducket
Belford local information reference
Mills Archive entry: Spindlestone Ducket Mill, Belford
British listed building reference: Spindlestone Ducket
Geograph photographic records: Outchester Ducket and Spindlestone Ducket
Belford local information reference