Skidby Windmill facts for kids
Skidby Windmill is a famous old windmill located in a village called Skidby. This village is close to Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It's a very important building, listed as a Grade II* historic site.
This amazing windmill was first built way back in 1821. It was made even taller in 1870, reaching its current height of five stories. The mill used four large sails, each about 11 metres long, to grind grain. It worked as a business until 1966. For some of those years, from 1954 to 1966, it also used electric machines to grind food for animals. But it still kept making wholemeal flour the old-fashioned way.
In 1969, the local council bought the windmill for just £1. After some repairs, it opened again in 1974. Now, it's a working museum where people can visit and learn.
What is Skidby Windmill?
Skidby Windmill is the only working windmill north of the Humber river in England. It still makes wholemeal flour from wheat grown nearby. You can visit the windmill most days of the week. The mill grinds flour from Wednesday to Sunday, if the weather is good.
Next to the windmill are some old warehouses. These buildings are home to the Museum of East Riding Rural Life. This museum shows what life was like in the countryside a long time ago. One cool thing to see there is the 'Wolds Wagon'. This wagon was built by a company called P. H. Sissons & Sons, who made wagons from 1854 onwards.
Restoring the Windmill
Old buildings like Skidby Windmill need a lot of care. In 2008, work began to fix parts of the mill. The very top part of the windmill, called the cap, was removed by a crane. This cap weighs 15 tons! It was the first time the cap had been taken off since the 1870s.
More repairs started in late 2019. The big sails and the fantail (a small windmill at the back that turns the cap into the wind) were taken off. They were sent all the way to Norfolk to be fixed. In July 2020, workers repaired the roof and windows. Then, they painted the tower, which took about three months.
The sails and fantail were brought back to the mill in early 2021. However, two of the sails had wet rot, which is like wood decay. Because of this, they had to be replaced with new ones that looked exactly like the old ones.
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