Lambourn Windmills – Windmill Farm

by Liz Beard

Berkshire’s earliest windmill was recorded at UpLambourn, as the village was then known, in 1273. The medieval chronicler Leland speaks of a “windmill in the southwest field” at Lambourn.  In 1605 a windmill in the southern field was granted by William Essex to John Lewes the Elder and his son for a term of three lives and for a sum of 20 shillings a year.

The lease was transferred to Robert Goddard in 1610, passing from him to Richard Organ in 1612-13.  In 1652 John Organ, a relative of Richard and inheritor of the lease, died whereupon his nephew Richard Hippisley came into possession of the mill, which was then being tenanted by Robert Plaisterer.  It appears to have gone by 1700, in which year a document relating to a case in the Court  of Common Pleas mentions “that Platt and parcel of ground whereon a certaine windmill lately stood!”

Later a windmill stood about a mile from Lambourn on the road to Baydon, on what may have been the same site as the seventeenth century mill.  It first appears on the Rocque’s map of 1771.  In 1788 it was owned along with a watermill at the eastern end of the town by Richard Castle, who in the year took out a fire insurance policy for the mills at a cost of £150.  The policy note describes the windmill as timber-built, suggesting a post or smock mill.  In the following year the mills were put up for sale; the purchaser was evidently a Thomas Tubb for he was the owner in 1794, with a Mr May as tenant Miller.  Tubb had taken out his own insurance policy which he renewed in 1795, 1807, 1808 and 1810.  In 1808 the Windmill ‘house’, meaning the structure alone without the machinery, together with the latter was worth £100.

William Painter was the miller in 1847, 1854 and 1877.  The mill last appears on the 1887 ordnance survey map, on which it is called Farncombe Windmill, but as it was surveyed between 1867 and 1878 it may not necessarily have been standing at that time.  Windmill farm marks the site today but of the mill itself no traces remain.
William Painter resided at Tadpole Mill in Mill Lane and owned Windmill Farm for some years.

1851 David Bickett was a miller and lived at Windmill with his wife Matilda
1861 Owen Lassam was miller and farmer of 23 acres and lived at Windmill with his mother, Sarah Lassam and his brothers and sisters, Sidney, Maria, Alfred, Edwin and Edgar
1871 John Wall  was a farmer and miller and farmed 14 acres at Windmill with his wife Sarah Jane.
1881 Ellen Hall (grocers’ wife) was at Windmill with her daughter Lillian, widowed Father, Shadrack Eagle and her brother in law James Hall.
1891 John Cox a farmer, his wife Sarah, son Thomas and grandson Walter Dobson
1901 Frederick Somerby (no other information)
1911 Walter Pike, widower and housekeeper Emily Farmer

In the latter years from 1948-1960  Maurice Papps and his wife Olive, farmed at Windmill Farm until it was purchased by Richard McCabe. It was then that Windmill Farm saw a long relationship with Richard and his family who was the last occupant of Windmill Farm where Farncombe Windmill stood.

Liz Beard 2021