Windmill, Butt Road.<1><2><3><4>

A potter's kiln was found when the old windmill, which stood on the south side of Butt Road near the Salisbury Hotel, was pulled down in 1890. In that year the Museum acquired 'a portion of the top of a Roman pottery kiln on which the vessels were set for baking' (given to the museum by Henry Laver (COLEM1890.55).<5><6>

The history of milling at the Butt Road site begins in May 1660, when George Sandford bought land for the Mill. In September 1662 Sandford conveyed to John Gibson the younger (miller of Middle Mill) that the Mill was now completed.<7>

VCH 1994 (p.263) records that the mill was rebuilt soon after 1779 and, again, after a fire, in 1787. In 1824 it was a post mill with three pairs of stones over a brick round-house. It was repaired after storm damage in 1852 but demolished in 1881.<8>

Note that Butt Road is labelled as Mill Street on Monson's 1848 map, but the name had changed to Butt Road on the OS First County Series Epoch 1, 1874-87 (1:2500).<9> (Note, the mill is also depicted on James Deane's plan of 1748, The Iconography of Colchester).

The remains of the curving (red) brick base (the southwest outer part, based on the position and circumference), surviving to c.1.60m in height, are preserved within the basement of 69 Butt Road (viewed and photographed on 16/07/20), allowing the windmill to be accurately located (straddling Nos. 67-69). NB. It seems likely that the visible wall in the basement is the remains of the below-ground foundation of the brick round-house, and that the earth around/on the outside has been dug out (i.e. this would mean that the mill was demolished to ground level, with only below-ground foundations surviving). The wall appears to have been cut away/through by the brick foundation of the later house.<10>