Author: Richard Symonds
Does anyone know anything about the history of Knepp Windmill, Shipley, West Sussex? Not to be confused with Shipley Mill of Hilaire Belloc fame.
In 1754, John Wicker bought Knepp and immediately commissioned James Crow to prepare a detailed survey of the estate. This invaluable map still hangs in the Estate Office today. It shows that the estate had already been disemparked by this time, and that the area of the former deer park had been given over to agricultural use, divided into a number of largely rectilinear fields. It also confirms the existence of Knepp Mill Pond (although there had been a Medieval stew pond on the site previously), and shows the location of a Mill building at its southern end, with a windmill sited close by.
I am intrigued, as a search through the Burrell archives is strangely silent on this important piece of industrial archaeology. When was the windmill built? When did it go? What family milled there? So many questions. Has anyone studied the mills in this part of West Sussex? It was still there in 1788, when S.H. Grimm, the famous artist, painted a watercolour of the mill pond depicting the windmill to the extreme right of the picture.
For image of the relevant section of Crow map and a copy of Grimm’s watercolour, visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/104327509066642107642/KNEPPWINDMILL?authkey=Gv1sRgCOWuvfnWhpOU5wE#
