Milton Bryan Windmill

Milton Bryan windmill is at the top of this map of 1635 [T46/1] to see a larger version please click on the image

The Bedfordshire Historic Environment Record [HER] contains information on the county’s historic buildings and landscapes and summaries of each entry can now be found online as part of the Heritage Gateway website. The entry for Milton Bryan’s windmill [HER 3162] notes that the mill is mentioned in 1625 and 1635, in the latter year being shown on a map forming part of a survey [T46/1] and lying in a field called Windmill Peece.

In 1931 Bedfordshire Historical Record Society published its Volume XIV which included research on Bedfordshire windmills carried out by the indefatigable J. Steele Elliott who carried out a lot of work on Bedfordshire’s built heritage in that era, much of which has subsequently gone. He wrote that in 1626 “Francis Staunton, knight, demands in a Recovery against Robert Staunton, esquire and William Merridale, the manor of Milton Bryan alias Milton Bryant, and eight messuages, one windmill etc. in Milton Bryan alias Milton Bryant, Eversholt and Woburn, as his right, into which Robert and William had no entry except after disseisin made by Hugh Hunt”.

In 1707: “In the Inventory of Benefices [ABE2] we find a reference to Mill Field, in which many furlongs are mentioned by name” and in 1794 “Mill Close and Mill Piece are referred to under the “Old Enclosures” [A70]; they are mapped south and south-west of the church”. This contradicts the map evidence which clearly shows the mill to the north of the church, as can be seen in the map above.