Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2012 | Page 59

FEATURE

Report by Peter White
Windmills and water mills were an integral
part of life on the Isle of Wight for many
centuries.
More recently their numbers have dwindled
dramatically, although Bembridge Windmill
and the water mill at Calbourne are shining
examples of two types of mills and the role
they played within the Island community.
Local research has revealed that mills were
in existence here in the Saxon period, and it
has been suggested the Romans used them
while draining local meadows. In all, it has
been discovered, that at one time or another
there have been on the Island 14 windmills,
seven tide mills, two paper mills, three
fulling, two steam over, and no fewer than 40
water mills, as well as numerous animal corn
mills and animal-drawn lifting mills, such as
the one at Carisbrooke Castle.
Over more than 20 years, Joe Lashmar,
a retired engineer who lives in Shide, has
painstakingly discovered sites where mills
once stood, researched them and drawing
pictures of how they might have looked in
their prime. They include two that even King
Harold – he of the arrow in his eye – owned
on the Island, as well as others that were
mentioned in the Domesday Book.
Joe explained: “When I retired in 1990
I began keeping bees, and among the
beekeepers there were lots of discussions as to
whose bees were bringing in linseed, or flax
as it is also known. I did some research and
found out that Haseley Manor was the first
flax fulling mill on the Island, and only the
second or third in the whole of the country.
It was built by monks from Quarr Abbey just
before the 13th century.
“I then picked up a book on Island Mills,
but soon discovered there were many mills
not mentioned in it that had existed. So I
began tabulating all the mills myself, and
have come across about 70 altogether on the
Island, and drawn them all.”
Joe has also included some panoramic views
of the various valleys on the Island where
mills were prominent, one of which stretched
from Clatterford paper mill along Lukeley
Brook through Carisbrooke, and up to St
Cross Mill, close to where the Lidl store now
stands in Newport, and can still be partially

Main picture: Bembridge windmill
Above: Joe Lashmar with his Island Mills book

seen when looking up the river. More recently
Joe discovered the sites of two more mills
near Newpo 'B