Heage, a village in Derbyshire, gets its name from a derivation of ‘High Edge’ so what better place to build a windmill back in 1797. The very nature of windmills means they are exposed to the elements and over a span of two hundred years it’s no surprise that the structure fell into disrepair.

She (apparently all windmills are female) was abandoned in 1919 after storm damage but was eventually restored to working order in 2002. It is now a Grade II* listed building and the only working six-sailed stone tower windmill in England. It is lovingly preserved and maintained by Heage Windmill Society and Friends of Heage Windmill. One can only imagine the amount of time and fund-raising it takes by the volunteers to keep a project like this viable and successful. Their website, link below, gives some indication of that.

Perhaps this post should be sub-titled ‘One subject, four skies’; all photographs were taken in the the space of 30 minutes. Well the weather forecast was scattered showers and sunny intervals!

Heage Windmill website