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Gilbert Cannan (1884-1955) and Mary Barrie, former wife of writer J.
M. Barrie, were seeking the solitude of the countryside, which
Gilbert thought would have a beneficial effect on his work. In
the early summer of 1913, the Cannans, together with their two
enormous dogs, took up residence in the tile-hung Mill House that
stands to the right of the entrance drive to the mill. But
more important to Gilbert was the windmill, which he intended to
turn into his own private haven and place of work. He wrote to
a friend “We’ve taken a windmill to clear out to in the
Chilterns, and I’m to have a study looking towards the four corners
of the Heavens and the earth”. Cannan obviously drew his
desired inspiration from the panoramic views of the surrounding
countryside, for during this period novels, plays, poetry and
translations poured from his pen and he succeeded in achieving a
modest literary reputation.
Inside the windmill, the local carpenter was engaged to fit shelves
in the study for the Cannans’ huge collection of books; a tall desk
was installed where he worked — either standing or sitting on a high
stool — and a Russian artist friend painted a frieze around the
walls. Other aspects of interior design were suggested and
carried out by Mary. She decorated the walls of the circular
living room with great flower patterns, cutting out and pasting up
each flower, fern and leaf herself; although not to everyone’s
taste, all their guests admired her originality. A spiral
staircase was fitted and a dado of brightly-coloured frescos adorned
the dining room, none of which now remain.
At first, the couple enjoyed their rustic life. The garden of
the Mill House was already planted out and Mary acquired part of a
paddock adjoining the mill to enlarge the grounds. A courtyard
was laid and tubs planted with shrubs and flowers. Gilbert
joined the local cricket club and occasionally played bowls in the
adjacent The Full Moon public house, including in the party any of
the Cannans’ frequent weekend visitors.
Fig. 9.7:
Gilbert Cannan at his Windmill.
Cholesbury has probably never seen such a lively time as the period
of Gilbert Cannan’s occupancy of the windmill. Weekend
evenings saw pastimes, such as poetry readings, playing the pianola,
philosophical talk and performances by the guests of plays written
by Gilbert. The artistic luminaries of the day who stayed
there, or in the village, included writers D. H. Lawrence, Katherine
Mansfield and Compton Mackenzie; and the painters Vladimir Polunin
and Mark Gertler. In Gertler’s colourful painting (fig. 9.7),
the tapering windmill flanked by trees provides the background to
the main subject who is depicted standing between his two dogs, one
of which, Porthos, was used as the model for Nana in
J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Reputed to have taken two years to
complete, the painting is now on display in the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford.
But the idyll was not to last. The Great War broke out;
Gilbert’s fragile mental health began to show the first signs of
collapse; his marriage was failing, eventually ending in 1918
following an affair with their maid, who became pregnant.
Following WWI, Gilbert wrote and translated a great deal. He
also travelled and during an absence in America his mistress, Gwen
Wilson, a radiantly beautiful art student, married the third member
of what had become a ménage à trios, the industrialist and financier
Henry Mond. The result was that Cannan suffered an
irreversible mental breakdown and spent his remaining years confined
to a private psychiatric hospital, where he died in 1955.
THE WINDMILL’S LATER LIFE
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Fig. 9.8: Doris Keane (1881-1945), actress. |
Shortly after the Cannans left the mill in
1916, the tenancy was taken by one of their friends, the American
actress Doris Keane, who used the windmill as her country retreat.
The artistic connection continued until the 1930s when a Chelsea
portrait and landscape artist, Bernard Adams (1888-1965), conducted
an art school in the mill. A description of the mill at this
time appears in English Windmills (Vol. 2), although this was
concerned with its structural condition rather than its colourful
tenants. . . .
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“This is a circular brick mill standing in
private grounds behind the old converted mill house . .
. It last worked sixteen years ago, when it was grinding
standard flour. Since it ceased working a cottage
has been built against the mill, apparently
incorporating part of its lower floor. One of the
sails was shortened at that time as its length
interfered with the work on the roof.” |
In 1937, the Windmill Section of the Society for the Protection of
Ancient Buildings stepped in to carry out necessary repairs.
One account states that the windmill was transferred to Cholesbury
Parish shortly before the outbreak of WWII., but this seems
unlikely.
Hawridge windmill experienced another change in its fortunes during
WWII., when it was used as a look-out post. What is certain is
that it afterwards fell into disrepair and dereliction. One
sail blew off during a gale in the early 1950s and another
collapsed.
The mill had to wait until 1968 to be completely restored by its
then owner, Don Saunders, an engineer at British Aerospace. He
designed and built new hollow steel spars, painted red and white,
which were winched into position to replace the mill’s original
sails.
Hawridge Mill has had several owners since its post-war restoration,
with the artistic connection continuing with Mrs Saunders, a former
Tiller Girl, and Sir David Hatch, a comedian and later Managing
Director of BBC Radio.
Fig. 9.9:
what might have been the flywheel from the mill’s steam engine.
The mill is now tastefully furnished as a private home with a
spacious kitchen installed in what was once the meal floor.
Some of the mill’s equipment survives in the cap; the brake wheel, a
substantial iron windshaft and its tail (roller) bearing (plates
16 and 17).
That part of the winding gear comprising the spindle, rack and
pinion together with a hand crank also remains — the fantail fitted
today is for purely for show.
Downstairs in the sitting room appears a large cast iron wheel (fig.
9.9), some eight feet in diameter, propped up against one of the
walls. What purpose it served is a mystery. The fine
machining suggests a degree of precision unlike windmill equipment,
while there is no obvious sign of wooden teeth having been attached.
Furthermore, the aperture for the spindle appears too small to
accommodate an upright shaft. What it might have been — if
indeed it came from the mill — was the steam engine’s flywheel (the
12 hp steam engine at Wendover mill is recorded as having driven an
11ft diameter flywheel!)
――――♦――――
APPENDIX
TECHNICAL DETAILS OF HAWRIDGE TOWER MILL
Fig. 9.9: looking upwards from
beneath the curb. The windshaft and its tail bearing is on the
left,
the rack and pinion winding gear is
on the right.
English Windmills (Vol.2), provides the following brief
description of Hawridge windmill in 1932 . . . .
“The four sails are complete, but the
shutters have been removed. The vanes of the fantail are missing,
but the staging remains. The gallery is complete. The cap is of the
ogee shape and is apparently covered with zinc sheeting. The whole
of the tower is tarred.”
The ever-helpful writer on windmills, Stanley Freese, recorded the
following technical description (c.1939):
“The reefing gear was controlled by
external chain and weights suspended from a ‘Y’ wheel on the fan
stage; and the fly was of the 8-vaned pattern. From this
fantail a wormshaft passed horizontally over the curb to drive a
vertical countershaft, at the foot of which a pinion engaged with
the iron cog-ring upon the inner face of the curb, as at Wendover
and Quainton. In common with the latter mills, Hawridge is
provided with a ‘shot’ curb, that is to say a floating chain of
bearing rollers free of both the curb and cap; but in the present
instance the rollers are shorter and more sharply tapered than at
Wendover. They are hollow, with two slots at the end for
positioning the inner casting cone. Two check wheels are
suspended by iron arms to run against the curb beneath the cog-ring;
one at the tail, and one on the right-hand side, to correspond with
the luffing gear on the left-hand. The tail bearing of the
iron windshaft is situated in the tail of the small cap, so that the
shaft actually extends back over the curb of the mill; and upon the
shaft is a two-piece eight-armed iron brake wheel measuring only 7
or 8 ft. in diameter, its wooden cogs engaging with an iron wallower
upon an iron upright shaft, but all the gear below the windshaft was
cleared out early in the war [WWI].
“There are believed to have been two pairs of under-driven stones in
the mill, driven by a wooden spur; and an additional two pairs in
the wooden building of the steam mill.” |
