A report by Darren Stone
Did you know Tilty once had a windmill as well as a watermill??
The now long gone windmill at Tilty is first recorded on a 1588 survey and valuation of the manor for Henry Maynard, later Lord Maynard, of Easton Lodge. He was Private Secretary to William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign.
When the watermill was first built is not clear, but the estate Maynard bought in 1588 was effectively the lands belonging to the dissolved Tilty Abbey.
The next documentary evidence of the windmill is from the beautiful Agas map of 1594 which is now in the safekeeping of the Essex Record Office at Chelmsford, Essex.
This map clearly shows an open trestle post mill standing in ‘Windmill field’ on the Tilty to Broxted road.
Extract from 1594 Joseph Agas map
The next reference is another Easton Lodge estate map, again in the ERO, dated 1730 which shows the mill in detail.
1730 Estate map showing ‘Windmill Field’
The final reference to the windmill I have found is in the will of Charles, Viscount Maynard, in 1775, which mentions Joseph Hawes as miller at Tilty Windmill AND Watermill.
Later maps at the turn of the century do not show a windmill at Tilty.
Why did the mill disappear towards the end of the 18th century? Perhaps it was too old and was pulled down, but also remember that the present brick build Tilty watermill dates from around this time and maybe the new watermill took over from the old windmill?
However, many old mills were taken down, refurbished and sold on or moved to a new location. Could this have happened to the Tilty windmill?
Surely a prime candidate for this would be the post mill at Broxted which was built around 1800, and was only a couple of miles from the Tilty windmill site.
Information about the Broxted windmill can be found on these sites:
https://www.recordinguttlesfordhistory.org.uk/broxted/broxtedwindmill.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_mill
Darren Stone — 23rd June 2020
