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 Once
incorporating a watermill, stood on the south side of the moat at
Hall Farm, approached by a drive leading eastwards from the parish
church. T.Q. 604831.
The
account that follows was written prior to the mill’s collapse on
2nd November, 1977. the first two paragraphs have been
spared deletion, nevertheless, as they reflect the special appeal
exerted by the mill and it’s pastoral setting, which drew
repeated visits by the author and his associate, the late Denis
Sanders.
Here,
the romantic pull of the languishing windmill demands a little
rein. In August 1976, South Ockendon smock mill stands proudly
erect and magnificent in
dereliction, in posthumous tribute to the builder and to the
joint endeavors of those who help perfect the smock mill frame
as such. For over fifty years it has stood in idleness, defying
all assault and subsiding on the robustness of its own
construction. A grey-green patina encrusts the weatherboards
where such remain, so that the mill tones in perfectly with its
surround, and would of appeared to of sprung from the soil.
Viewed against the screen of poplar trees, whose leaves in a
summer’s breeze are set in a sparkling movement – perhaps
pointillist- who would commit to canvas for prosperity this
noble study of decay.
From time to time there has been talk of restoration, but
the cost would be prohibitive; meanwhile the seclusion of the
mill’s situation has eased the task of vandals. Fires started in
the mill base have fortunately
been quelled in time, the moat water being brought out of
its retirement and put to useful service again inside the
windmill.
It
is thought that windmills stood in this locality from the
thirteenth century but the eighteenth century maps at least seem
to indicate a hiatus in the milling. Donald Smith gives 1829 as a
possible date of origin of the late surviving mill, when a Mr.
Sturgeon of The Hall, established a milling business,
but Greenwood (1825) records a windmill at the site, and it is
given in 1826 as in William Eve’s occupation, rented from John
Cliff2. eve had followed Samuel Green in 1820, and
Green can be traced back to c1802, but whether as a practicing miller is not certain. There is a reference in 1829 to William
Eve, miller of South ockendon3. on grinding gleaning
corn for one David Perry, he became suspicious over its quality,
and on being shown a sample, a local farmer recognised it as his
own. Having been convicted of a similar theft a year before, the
unfortunate Perry was sentenced to fourteen years transportation,
leaving a wife and child to regret the magistrates’ decision to
make an example of him, stressing thereby the ‘enormity’ of
the offence of defrauding one’s own master. Eve continued as the
operating miller after 1830.
Firm
evidence that the business was rung as a wind and water mill in
combination, as supposed by various writers, comes from a sale
notice of 18454offering the freehold of an estate
stated to include: ‘A windmill with fan sails and water power,
with undershot waterwheel, which drive four pair of stones, and
the machinery, going gear, and connections necessary for the
manufacturing of flour, and grinding all kinds of grain. The
complete dwelling house, situated near the Hall, with garden; late
in the occupation of Mr. Thomas Banks.
Water
from the moat was led into the mill base and out on the
eastern flank towards Bulphan Fen; several photographs show the
lower, vertical brickwork at the exit point from which the earth
was banked away. This part of the mill must have been used
sparingly to supplement the output of the windmill -
a reversal of
the
usual roles in joint winds and water operation. A sale pursuant to
an order of Chancery in 1847 states the area of the farm at 667
acres; in 1848 Thomas Bennett Sturgeon was described as miller and
farmer at the Hall5.
In June 1853 the mill was severely damaged by lightning,
which was thought to have first struck the point of the top sail
and then to have run down to the south-west angle of the mill
exterior via a lead flashing and to have leapt across to the
nearby shed. Some fragments weighing nearly 30lb. Were thrown
upwards of 50 yards away6.
Charles Balls, millwright, of Becontree Heath, was taken to
court in 1877 by Stephen Challis, then miller at Ockendon mill,
for failure to pay commission due for the facing and sale of
millstones undertaken by the miller7. At about the same
time, one Smith came to work under Challis and he was interviewed
at the mill some 40 years later by Dr. Turner in September 1919,
still engaged in grinding wheat for bread. Smith remarked that the
applewood cogs of the break and other wheels were marked when
renewed and an entry kept, and that the mill was ‘upward of 100
years old’. In directories dated 1912 and 1914 the mill was
stated to be working by wind and steam under the name of C. and
William Sturgeon. The mill came to a halt in 1923.
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