Randonnées Chiltern Society’s Lacey Green windmill

Lacey Green Windmill: England’s oldest remaining ‘smock’ mill, so called due to its resemblance to an old fashioned farmer’s smock. The internal wooden machinery appears to date from c1650. During the 19th century it was rebuilt and modernised with fantail, patent sails, governor and machinery for grain cleaning and flour sifting, and continued working until 1915. In the 1920s it was used as a weekend cottage. Despite some obvious attempts at weatherproofing, by the mid-1930s it was in poor condition. By the late 1960s, the mill was in a desperate state, the whole body being twisted and tilted. In 1971 the Chiltern Society stepped in and volunteers, led by Christopher Wallis, began work to restore it. The project was completed in 1986 and in July 2013 it was given a prestigious Engineering Heritage Award by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.