Toot Hill Windmill – a disaster revisited

This post mill was built in about 1815 and is best known for a dramatic incident on 18 June 1829 when it was severely damaged after being struck by lightning. The miller, Joseph Knight, father of seven children was seriously injured, and subsequently engravings of the shattered mill were sold “for the benefit of the sufferer”. The engraving, reproduced in the Victoria County History, shows a figure in a dramatic pose in front of the ruined mill. The original drawing by Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers is in the Taylor collection in the Colchester Museum.

Nine days after the accident, Thomas Squire of Epping wrote at length in the Mechanics Magazine. He had examined the mill closely and described in detail the passage of the “electric fluid” through the building. After striking one sail, it passed through the cap and down a hoisting chain within the mill, welding the links into a solid mass. It then burst out through the side wall to reach the “plates of iron” covering the round house roof. From there it travelled down the iron braced access ladder to earth. The luckless miller, who was on the second floor at the time, suffered from burns, blast injury from flying fragments of wood and grain, damage to one eye and his right hand, and a compound fracture of one leg. The Chelmsford Chronicle gave a graphic account of these injuries, and Dr Potter, the Ongar surgeon, attended the victim to amputate his injured leg. The account grimly observed that “the saw was required” and noted, not surprisingly, that the miller’s health was “in a rather precarious state”.

Mr Squire, in the best traditions of journalism, had taken with him Joseph Marsh, of Park Corner, Epping, whose sketch of the ruined mill appeared as a woodcut on the front cover of the Mechanics Magazine. Squire sent at least one, and possibly two further reports to this publication and, a fortnight later, another of Marsh’s sketches featured on the front cover. The follow up reports indicated that the miller was recovering and that more than a cupfull of wheat grains had been removed from his body. The mill had not been insured but the owner, Edward Rayner, had instructed millwrights to commence repairs. There was discussion of the owner’s plan to erect a lightning conductor at short distance from the mill, as “he had no wish to invite such an unwelcome visitor a second time”. The writer considered that a well earthed copper strip attached to the sails would be a better precautionary measure. It is not clear what became of the miller, and the churchwarden’s accounts of this period are lost. It seems likely that he and his family would have required parish relief.

The mill was rebuilt and continued to operate until about 1900. By 1919 it was derelict and, in February 1923, it was again struck by lightning, setting the cap on fire. Three appliances from Epping extinguished the blaze. In 1935 a mill stone crashed through the upper floors and fell into the yard below. A photograph of that period shows the weather boarded superstructure looking deceptively intact, though scrub was growing through the round house roof. It was decided to demolish the mill and, in December 1935, after removal of the brick round house, the body of the mill was pulled down with a rope. The saleable timber was disposed of and the rest given away as firewood. The four brick piers which supported the cross trees at the base of the main post were still visible in the 1950s. Are they still there, and what became of the luckless miller, Joseph Knight?
Michael Leach