A. Stocks (proud dad with a camera): Home Of The Windy Miller (pic 4)

So this Sunday I headed out (at the behest of my lovely wife. OK it was more like, 'Get out from under my feet and take some pictures!' Bless her you gotta love her) to try and find something to photograph. I got into the car and started driving south. After about half an hour I took a slip road off the A23 and headed to Gatwick another 5 minutes and I found this......

This is Lowfield Heath Windmill situated just outside of Charlwood village and has been almost fully restored to working condition. It was closed when I got there as it only opens a few Sundays a year but as I was photographing the outside some of the members of the Trust in charge of the site came to do some work on it and were kind enough to let me go inside. Below are just a few of the many pictures I took that morning.

These were all taken on the first floor just using the light of the sun shining in through a small side hatch. I think they are lit beautifully.

What struck me about this windmill was the skill and care that has gone into the restoration. As you can see from the picture above a lot of new woodwork has been put into place and it impressed me how beautiful it all looked. There's something about wood that you just don't get from modern building materials. All the glass, steel and concrete mausoleums that they throw up in every city could do with more natural materials like wood and stone. Which leads me to the my next pic...

The centre column is an original piece (can't remember if they said from this windmill or not but certainly from an old relic of a windmill) and the cross beam that you can see in the lower left corner that supports the whole thing was an old timber that was originally going to be used in York minster after the fire back in 1984, but ended up not being used. Years later it was secured for use in the restoration of this Windmill. A well travelled bit of wood, big bit of wood.

This is some of the old metal work form another windmill that is on display in the grounds. The picture was taken from the small side hatch that allowed the light to enter for pictures 2 & 3.

So there you have it, the Lowfield Heath Windmill in all its restored glory. The grounds are open all the time so any one can take a close up look when ever they like, or you can go on one of the open days to get a look inside and maybe talk to some of the guys involved in its restoration. I fully recommend it.