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On October 16th 1987 a severe hurricane hit the South of
England. One of the storm's victims was Jill Windmill. Simon Potter recalled the events of that night:
5 a.m. at Clayton Windmills. Mrs Vera Deering, worried that
the storm outside may blow in the windows of the house,
wakes her husband Robert, and asks him to check that all is
well. As he looks out of the window he sees a stream of
sparks, rather like comets and realises that they are
coming from Jill Windmill. He rushes to the telephone to
ring me.
The message was terrifyingly simple "Jill Windmill is on
fire." I hurriedly telephoned two other Members of the
society before setting out. Outside, I met my neighbour
Peter Chandler and told him the news. Driving up to the
windmills was impossible, trees blocked the lane in both
directions. It was clear that the only way to the mills
would be on foot.
The fire-damaged rim of Jill's Brakewheel
At this time of the morning it was still dark and I could
only see thirty yards ahead. The higher I climbed, the more
difficult it became to progress forward, on a number of
occasions I was blown over by the gale. Halfway up the
hillside I passed a piece of white timber which I
recognised as being one of Jill's shutters. Soon I could
see the "comets" of sparks in the sky ahead of me. The wind
must have been blowing at around 120 mph, standing upright
became impossible, and I was forced to crawl the last 50
yards or so on my hands and knees. Upon reaching the car
park, I threw myself over the fence into the shelter of our
site hut, the noise of the gale was almost deafening.
I fought my way against the gale and up Jill's steps, I
reached up to the door and realised that the steps had come
adrift from the mill body, but still managed to reach the
padlock and open the door. The sweeps were turning despite
the fact that the brakewheel had been chocked and that the
brakelever had been pegged down. I quickly released the brake. The mill
had started to fill with smoke as a result of the friction
between the brake shoe and the brakewheel. A bucket of ash
is kept on this floor for just such an emergency, it should
provide sufficient grip when the brake is applied.
Robert Deering had left his wife in the house and joined me
in the mill. We applied some ash and we lowered the brake.
Sparks flew off the brakewheel in all directions, but the
sweeps showed no sign of stopping. A second attempt also
failed. We rushed outside and grabbed some buckets which we
filled with gravel from his garden. At this point Peter
Chandler appeared through the dark and helped us to carry
the buckets. Inside, we tried again to stop the sweeps,
then we noticed that there was a glow from the front corner
of the mill, and that the body of Jill was on fire. I
rushed to a fire extinguisher and pushed the plunger - only
a trickle came out!
Water became the next priority, while I continued to try to
stop the sweeps Robert and Peter ran back to the house and
started to ferry buckets of water up to the mill.
Martin Brunnarius, whom I had phoned earlier, had left his
home in Burgess Hill immediately, due to fallen trees the
journey to Clayton took over an hour and a half. He parked
his car at the foot of the Downs and climbed the hill to
join us. Together we at last managed to stop the sweeps.
The mill body continued to glow so more water was required,
this was drawn from the water tank by Jill (which we had
overlooked earlier!!) and was poured down onto the glowing
timbers from the bin floor.
At this point we discovered that the telephones were not
working, how lucky we were that they had been at 5 a.m.
The rest of the day was spent clearing up the mess. A
number of people came to the mill later expecting to see
smouldering ruins. Bad news travels fast - one local radio station had
been announcing that Jill Windmill had burned to the
ground!
Jill Windmill is so lucky to have such good friends who
care so much about her, without the brave help of Robert,
Peter and Martin, the radio station could well have been
right.
In addition to the fire, Jill sustained considerable damage
elsewhere. One stair hinge came adrift whilst the fantackle
was still active, breaking the handrail, cracking the top
three treads, dragging the steps round and entrenching its
wheels in the ground. Later three fanblades were blown off
and the other two were damaged beyond repair. The tailpole
tenon and its mortise were damaged along with some of the
weatherboarding, surprisingly, the stocks and sweeps
survived.
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