Williamsburg Windmill

by Norma Brandsberg

Title

Williamsburg Windmill

Artist

Norma Brandsberg

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

Robertson’s Windmill was reconstructed on North England Street in 1957, a decade before the opening of the Peyton Randolph site.

The mill stands in the middle of what later became the Randolph property in what is believed to have been the garden.

No archaeological footprint for the windmill has been found and it was last mentioned in the records in 1723, a half century before the period now interpreted at the Randolph site.

All the land on the east side of North England Street was later acquired by Sir John Randolph, and evidence is strong that his son, Peyton, cleared the earlier structures in the 1750s to create the large “urban plantation” guests see today.

Robertson's Windmill was built in 1957 by millwright Derek Ogden to plans outlined by Rex Wailes based on measurements from Bourn mill in Cambridgeshire. The plans were then refined by Edward Hamilton, who took them through to the state of building a functional model from them. The plans used to build this replica have since been used to build a number of other replicas at various locations in the USA.

After over 50 years in its original location, the mill was suffering from lack of maintenance, having been closed to the public since 2003, and it no longer fitted the historical interpretation of the property it was built on, so a decision was made to move it in 2010 to a more rural location nearby on the Great Hopes Plantation. Restoration work in the new location was delayed, and not completed till late 2015.

Mills were a common site in colonial Virginia and relocating the windmill helps to complete the scene at this key historic site while also preserving Robertson’s Windmill.

Uploaded

December 13th, 2020

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