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Bradwell Windmill is a limestone tower mill which was built around 1805 by a Mr Samuel Holman. The positioning of the mill would have taken advantage of the adjacent newly opened Grand Union Canal, transporting flour into the London market. It is believed to be the oldest tower mill in the whole of Buckinghamshire.
Samuel Holman worked the mill until his death in 1825, when the business was inherited by his wife and son.
It milled barley and wheat and provided a living for the families who subsequently owned it in the following decades, but things were changing, and with the increasing use of steam power, the mill closed for business in 1876 when the Railway Company bought adjacent land for the development of the Wolverton to Newport Pagnell line (now the Railway Walk). The last miller was Robert Saxby.
Bradwell Windmill was left derelict until the 1970s when restoration work was undertaken by Milton Keynes Development Corporation and placed in ownership of Milton Keynes City Council. Further investment saw refurbishment work in 2014 which made the building watertight and restored the sales and milling mechanism, and Milton Keynes Museum was appointed custodian.
Courtesy of Living Archive
The mill consists of three floors above ground level, the stone floor, the bin floor and the dust floor, and still features original beams and equipment. One of its more unusual features is a fireplace on the ground floor, uncommon in mills due to the highly explosive properties of flour.
The stone floor has two sets of millstones; one pair made from Derbyshire Peak stone which would have been used to grind animal feed, and a pair of French stones for grinding finer flour for human consumption.
