Outwood Village Show 2011 Begins At Outwood Mill Again!

Its that time of year again when the Outwood Village show is upon once again!

This year promises to even bigger and better than previous years as already there is a record numbers of Attractions, stalls and products to be had at the show.

For the first time in many years the show is once again starting at Outwood Mill where the Vintage Cars and Childrens Fancy Dress Parade will begin and make its way to the Lloyd Hall. The Mill and the grounds will be open to those taking part.

There will be tons of fun and activity to be had at the Outwood Village Show 2011 and these include:-

• Classic & Vintage Cars
• “Peter Pan” Fancy Dress Parade
• Lots of Local Food Producers
• Wonderful Food & Craft Stalls
• Lingfield Silver Band
• Meet the Llama’s
• Pony Magic Rides
• Childrens Fun Activites
• Outwood Horticultural Society Annual Show

Plus an evening Barn Dance at Outwood Mill with licenced Bar, food and activities for the kids.

Plus much much more …

So if you love a traditional country show set in one of the most picturesque villages in Surrey then get yourself along to:-

Outwood Village Show 2011

Keep checking http://www.outwood.info for all the latest details

Outwood Mill Twitter Following Reaches the 1000 Mark!

Outwood Mill is becoming “Big” in the Social Networking arena!

After a dedicated marketing campaign by “webdesignhaus.co.uk” (Our internet design & Marketing partner) the dedicated twitter following for Outwood Mill has now exceeded over 1,000 people and/or organisations.

The nett result of this has been a definite increase in visitor numbers to Outwood Mill and more bookings for Schools, Scouts and other organisations.

Interestingly, because of the way webdesignhaus have targeted the right kind of followers for us in Twitter we have seen a large number of enquiries from National and International media publications and have been mentioned on Radio 2′s Jeremy Vine Show, The Independent Newspaper, The Times Educational Supplement and even by National Geographic who are considering doing an article on the Windmill at Outwood.

We know that as our investment into marketing begins to bear fruit the benefit to the Mill and Outwood Village will be enormous.

Watch this space as with the expertise being provided to us by WebDesignHaus it won’t be long before we are reporting that we’ve hit 5,000 dedicated followers.

Follow us on Twitter:

Outwood Mill On Twitter

Outwood Smock Mill – Latest Historical Picture

Recently while trawling through the archives over at the Mills Archive Trust we came across this amazing photograph!

This is a picture of Outwood Smock Mill probably some time in the 1940′s to the 1950′s.

Photo courtesy of Mills Archive Trust

We know that Smock Mill at Outwood blew down in a gale in November 1960 – you can find out more about the Outwood Smock Mill by clicking here

Records show that Outwood Smock Mill was the tallest smock ever built and it was constructed around 1792 by Ezekiel Budgen, who was the Uncle of the then Miller of the Post Mill at Outwood one William Budgen. William was the Grandson of the Builder of Outwood Mill, Thomas Budgen.

As you can see from the picture the smock mill was in a bad way and after it blew down much of the timber was “rescued” by the locals and there are some sheds and summerhouses in the village that contain wood from the Smock Mill. In fact the garage on the current Outwood Post Mill site and the Stable Barn attached to the property next door are also constructed from timbers from the old Smock Mill.

Its a sad loss and of course if it were standing today it wouldn’t have been left to blow down in a gale.

If you have any pictures or stories about Outwood Post Mill or the Smock Mill at Outwood, then we would be delighted to hear from you.

Outwood Mill Frank Fuller, Millwright 1876

We’ve just received this very interesting story and some images from Leslie Fuller in France.

According to the photographs sent to us by Leslie, his Great Grandfather, one Frank Fuller was a millwright in the latter part of the 19th Century and was certainly known to either the Jupp Brothers (William & Stanley) or even the Thomas brothers (Raymond & Gerald).

Here is an image of Frank Fuller, this was taken in 1876 and would make Frank around 19 years old at the time:-

As you can see from the photograph it appears that the man on the right of the image is working on a gear wheel for either a water mill or a windmill. One would suspect that this might be the man under whom Frank Fuller trained as a Millwright.

The photograph was sent to Leslie around 1986 by Raymond Thomas as the inscription on the rear shows.

Whats even more interesting is that Raymond Thomas indicated to Leslie that Frank Fuller made a donation of some his Millwrights Tools to the Windmill and Raymond confirmed at one time that there was an exhibition of these tools within the windmill.

Having looked through some recent photographs that we took recently at the windmill it appears that there are tools all over the windmill and some of these may indeed have belonged to Frank Fuller as Raymond Thomas indicated.

Here are some images of both the Roundhouse and the Stone floor showing millwrights tools hung up in various places.

The image above shows a row of “Mill Bills” that hang across one of the beams on the Stone Floor of Outwood Mill, these tools were used to “dress” the Mill Stones (Dressing the stones meant recutting the grooves in the Bed Stone that enabled the ground meal to exit the stones).

The image above shows some saws that hang in the Roundhouse (the lower part of the windmill), these do appear to herald from the late Victorian period and are therefore contemporary with Frank Fullers time as a Millwright.

What’s even more interesting is the photo below:-

This image shows Franks examination results for the exam he sat in Machine Construction and Drawing. The certificate is dated 6th May 1876 and shows Frank to be 19 at that time. This then means Frank was born in 1857 and I feel sure he lived to a ripe old age.

Certainly Frank Fullers memory and perhaps his workmanship lives on in Outwood Mill and we at the mill are indebted to Franks Great Grandson, Leslie for sharing this wonderful story with us and allowing us to publish these images.

If we find out anything more about Frank we’ll be sure to put it on the site here and if you are reading this and you have any further information about this story or any other history in connection to Outwood Mill we’d be delighted to hear from you.

Outwood Post Mill Featured On Stikinotes.com

After a recent visit to Outwood Mill by someone from Stikinotes.com. Outwood Mill is the FIRST Windmill in the UK To be featured on the Stikinotes.com site.

Stikinotes.com is a great way to share the places you have been to and also a fun way to find new places to visit based on the experiences of other people using Stikinotes.com.

Stikinotes is also available as an app for your phone so you can get information about things to do and places to visit while you are on the move and whats more you can even add places while you are visiting them! How cool is that!

Thanks again to Jessica from Stikinotes for adding us on the site.

Our stikinotes page is at – http://www.stikinotes.com/explore/669/outwood-windmill.aspx

Outwood Mill Starting Point For Outwood Village Show!

For the first time in a number of years the Village Show, to be held this year on Saturday 3rd September, will begin and end at Outwood Post Mill.

Historically the Outwood Village Parade always used to begin at Outwood Mill, however for the last few years the Windmill at Outwood hasn’t been available for this to happen. However, the new operators, Ray & Tracy, have opened up the Windmill and its grounds once again so that the procession and its participants can once again meet and begin the day at the Windmill.

More details of this will be published both in the forthcoming edition of the Outwood News but also in the Outwood Village Show guide which is being prepared as we speak.

Outwood Mill | Outwood Windmill “Pitch-In-Picnic” a Roaring Success.

On Saturday 9th July Outwood Post Mill on Outwood Common was opened to residents and families of Outwood Village for a “Pitch-In-Picnic”.

The idea behind this was to allow the new incumbents to get to know their new neighbours and fellow villagers and for the people living in the village to get reacquainted with Outwood Mill itself.

Fortunately the weather was kind and the rain held off for most of the day although there were one or two small spots rain during the afternoon this was interspersed with some quite warm spells.

The mill grounds was the setting for the Picnic and by 3PM the whole lawn was thronging with families and children enjoying the garden games and bouncy castle that had been laid on for them. Although it was noticed that one or two of the adults enjoyed the bouncy castle too.

There was plenty of food too as everyone entered into the spirit of “Pitching in” and the culinary delights ranged from lots of home made savouries, quiches and other munchies to some rather fine Chocolate Cakes and even Scones with Clotted Cream and home made Jam. All of which was accompanied by some good ales and bottles of champagne and of course the obligatory Pimms or Two (or Three or Four … we lost count!).

Both Ray and Tracy really enjoyed meeting everyone and whilst we might not remember all your names immediately it was lovely to see you all and get to know you better and it seemed that everyone enjoyed the Mill itself as many hadn’t been in the windmill before then.

The day was such good fun and such a success that we’ve decided to do it every year. So make a note in your 2012 diaries that the second Saturday in July is the Outwood Village “Pitch In Picnic” at the windmill. We are already planning next years event and we’ll have even more games, activities and fun lined up for everyone to enjoy.

We would like to thank everyone who came and made the day such good fun and created the community feel that Outwood is renowned for. Special thanks must go to Lloyd Hall for the loan of the Gazebo’s and the Tables and Chairs and also to Bill and Anne Morle who helped behind the scenes in “Connecting” us to the right people in the village for things we needed and for helping promote the event in the Outwood News.

Once again, thank you all and we look forward to an even bigger and better “Pitch In Picnic” Next summer.

Outwood Mill Featured in Outwood.info Website

Outwood Post Mill has been featured in the new Outwood Village Community website which can be found at:-

http://www.outwood.info

The new website is all about Outwood in Surrey and features a whole raft of local information about Outwood and Village Life.

The new website have been created by WebDesignHaus a leading London based internet design and marketing firm.

A spokesman for WebDesignHaus said:

We were delighted to have been chosen to produce the new community website for the village as we have been heavily involved in the project to build the new Outwood Mill site and raise the profile of the Mill Online. Now that we have built the Village Community site as well, we feel this is really cohesive set of sites that work well together.

Already the new website is filling up features and in particular items relating to Outwood Mill are appearing in the news feed and the RSS Feed from Outwood Mill is on the home page of the site too. So all the latest Outwood Post Mill news is being relayed to the whole village.

We are delighted that we now have a “Sister Site” in Outwood covering all the exciting things that are happening in and around Outwood and where locals and visitors alike can get good up-to-date information about whats on and what what to see.

We wish www.Outwood.info massive success and can’t wait to see how the site evolves over time into a really great portal for the Outwood Villagers.

Outwood Post Mill Commissions Video Clips About The Mill

Outwood Mill is going “Viral” online!

Outwood Post Mill have commissioned the renowned film production company, Video Productions Hampshire to produce a series of ten short clips for us in online promotions.

Dave Gosley, MD of Video Productions Hampshire said:-

We’ve been involved in some unusual filming over the years but this is first for us filiming a windmill and such a prestigious one as Outwood Mill.

Dave went on to say:-

“I can see how people get captivated by the age and incredible engineering that went into building Outwood Mill, its truly a captivating piece of architecture and a mechanical marvel as well”

Outwood Mill chose Video Productions Hampshire to produce these films after seeing some of their other video work for their clients. The level of attention to detail and the quality of their production shone through.

In fact Dave was so enamoured with the Mill at Outwood that he offered to be a sponsor pretty much on the spot and so visitors to the mill will get to see a lot of Dave with his TV Quality Film Cameras in and around Outwood Mill as he’ll making lost of short films and other items over the summer (and perhaps a little in the winter too if we can persuade him.)

Video Productions Hampshire have already produced ten clips which have been uploaded to out YouTube channel.

Click the icon to visit the Outwood Mill Youtube Page

If you would like to get in touch with Dave at Video Productions Hampshire then click the link below to visit the website:

Link to – Video Productions Hampshire

Outwood Post Mill becomes BT FON Free WiFi Hotspot

Outwood Mill is possibly the oldest thing on the internet!

We know how much people like to be connected to the internet and even better if its high-speed and FREE!

Well, Outwood Mill has now become a BT FON Free Wifi Hotspot meaning that anyone who is a member of BT FON or BT OPENZONE can now enjoy High Speed internet access whilst visiting Outwood Mill.

This is perfect for the mill as it allows people with smart mobile phones, wifi enabled cameras and handheld devices such as iPads, Tablets and Laptops to take pictures and record video of the mill and send these to all their friends online immediately in the social spaces such as Facebook and Twitter.

With apps such as Foursquare and other location based social networks becoming massively popular its only right that Outwood Mill joins in the fun online. Its a great way for the mill to be promoted online and can only mean more visitors and more funds for the upcoming repair work that needs to be done.

For more details about BT FON visit the website at BT Fon Wesbite