Historic windmill looks set to be restored

A council has approved plans to restore an historic windmill that was built more than 200 years ago.

Milton Keynes City Council said it would spend £470,000 on the Grade II-listed Bradwell windmill to fix failing infrastructure, conserve historic fabric and improve access and usability for visitors.

Work is expected to start next month and be completed by October 2026, with a view to the windmill playing a part in the 60th anniversary celebrations in the city in 2027.

Once renovated, the authority said it would transfer the lease of the building and the site to Milton Keynes Museum, based a mile away.

The windmill is thought to be the oldest tower mill in Buckinghamshire, having replaced an earlier post mill that had been built on the site of what is now the Summerfield School at Bradwell Common.

It already opens to the public on selected days in the summer, when the mill can be seen in action with flour spilling out between its millstones.

It was built in about 1805 using locally quarried limestone at a cost of more than £500, and it milled barley and wheat before it shut in 1876 due to increasing use of steam power.

In the 1860s, the Railway Company purchased the adjacent land to develop the Wolverton to Newport Pagnell line, which was then closed in 1967, but the mill was left derelict for more than a century.

Between the 1970s and 1990s it was refurbished at a cost of £160,000 by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, to make it watertight and its sails and milling mechanism were restored.

Then, in 2014, new windows and cap cladding were fitted and the sails refurbished, along with restoration work to the machinery to enable it to become a working mill again.

In agenda papers released by the council ahead of the meeting where the plans were approved, the authority said the "investment secures the mill's long-term sustainability as a unique attraction and community asset in a priority area of need".

It added that "with robust partnerships and a sustainable operating model in place, an important piece of local heritage will be saved".

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