Windmills were once a common sight in Newcastle, there were 49 of them in the town at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This one on Claremont Road was built in 1782 to harness the gusts of wind across the Town Moor and the Leazes, and is the last survivor in the city.
There had been a windmill here since at least 1649, with a watermill nearby that was powered by the Pandon Burn, both of them grinding wheat into flour for local consumption and for export to London. They were known as the Chimney Mills, and this name still applies to the area in general.
The old windmill was in poor shape by the middle of the eighteenth century; it had been struck by a bolt of lightning which shattered one of its wands into pieces. The famous engineer John Smeaton was hired to build a replacement windmill. He’s best known for designing the Eddystone Lighthouse in Cornwall and had first come here at the invitation of Newcastle Corporation, to assess the damage caused to the old Tyne Bridge by the Great Flood of 1771.
Smeaton came up with a revolutionary design for the new windmill at Chimney Mills, it was the first in the country to have five sails. It was completed in 1782 and offered for sale in the Newcastle Courant in August of the following year. The advert gives a good description of the property, and the vendor proudly adds it was “constructed under the directions of that celebrated artist, Mr Smeaton”.
The original windmill was included in the sale, as well as several other buildings, offices and granaries, and the watermill was now milling tobacco and snuff. This was an enterprise of considerable size, but within a few decades it was unable to compete with the power of steam. New businesses sprang up in town that could mill on an industrial scale, and weren’t at the mercy of the wind.
Smeaton’s windmill fell into disrepair and in 1865 the Newcastle Chronicle was warning its readers that the wands were in danger of falling off and killing someone. It ceased production shortly afterwards. The windmill was saved from demolition when it was acquired by the City of Newcastle Golf Club in 1892 and used as a clubhouse. It was taken over in 1907 by the Newcastle United Golf Club.
The sails had been stationary for a long time when they were removed in 1924, and the dome on the top was made watertight. This was shortly after the older of these two photographs was taken, the current photo shows that little else has changed at Chimney Mills over the following century.