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Rex Wailes Collection
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Pocket notebook - Cambridgeshire windmills -1925

A repurposed Seandar diary for 1925 measuring 9.5 cm x 15 cm recording an 8 day tour of windmills, most of which located in Cambridgeshire. Planning notes for the trip list mills to be visited each day (as well as recommended inns in which to dine/stay).
Notes are made for the mills listed in 'Place access points' below, occasionally accompanied with dimensions and drawings. Mills which have been demolished are also recorded. A list of those mills not visited is given at the back.
Unindexed mills visited include Polton Mill, Shepreth End post mill, a tower mill at Bradley and the remains of tower mills at Chesterton, Boxworth and March.
Mills at Histon, Waterbeach, Yelling, Fen Drayton, Somersham, Warboys, Susards Farm, Madingley and St John's Highway are marked 'non-est'.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Pocket notebook - focus on tide mills

A repurposed Lett's diary for 1936 measuring 7.5 cm x 11.5 cm, containing measurements, notes, calculations and drawings on a variety of engineering and milling matters including the mills listed at 'Place access points' below.

Reference is made to a number of sea or tide meals including unidentified ones at Denham, Wadebridge and St Austell, Cornwall and also to 'Butshead Tide Mill' [Budshead?] at St Budeaux. There are also 8 pages of notes under the headings 'Beech' and 'Stock' detailing the equipment/set-up within two unidentified mills. A further unidentified mill mentioned is 'Little Bentley Mill'.

Further notes on tide mills record that, 'porpoises came up at Barrow Hill Tide Mill, Abridge [Heybridge?], Maldon Essex'. A record is also made of '7 Tide Mills on North coast of Norfolk in the Burnhams'.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

'Letter from Leipzig'

60 page 'letter' sent to Wailes' wife, Enid. The letter is in the form of a diary recording Wailes' trip to the Leipzig Trade Fair. It records Wailes' impressions of his train trip through Germany, his fellow travellers and a visit to the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

The last ten pages record Wailes' trip north of Leipzig 'on the main Berlin road & as soon as we got out of the suburbs, there was a mill to every village we saw. Nearly all were post mills, & nearly all were the same. Patent sails, no round house tailpole with a winch on the end, straight pitched roof, vertical weatherboarding all tarred.' He comments that those mills near the main road had advertisments on their sides.

Wailes records a visit to a mill near Delitzsch where he meets the miller, Kurt Schumann, and 'took many photos, both inside and out'. There was also a visit to an unidentified tower mill, built in 1886, which Schumann described as a 'Hollandsche műhle,' which was brick-built with a fan-tail and octagonal cap. Wailes is particularly struck by the fact that it, 'had a lift instead of a chain for the sack hoist!!'.

A 'poltrok' mill at Rődgen is also visited (converted from a post mill in 1924, the original dating from 1614). Wailes comments, 'the mill is chock full of new machinery and new methods of drive, sufficient of the old being left to make it intensely interesting'.

Wailes concludes the letter, 'Must stop now. Dresden tomorrow'.

Research notes

Collection of undated research notes on:

  • an analysis of Suffolk post mills (72 pages);
  • winding gear (15 pages);
  • Robertson's windmill, Virginia (17 pages);
  • Cranbrook mill (11 pages);
  • a draft paper on the development of windmills, bearing similarity to sections of Wailes' 'Windmills in England' (published 1948) as well as a section on horse gear (24 pages);
  • drawings/tracings of mill mechanisms, particularly bell alarms and sack hoists (3 pages);
  • Suffolk windmills begining with 'W' listed at 'Place access points' below (3 cards);

Also a bundle of loose notes mostly focusing on Suffolk mills, some being undated, those that are ranging in date from 6 October 1928 to 29 April 1932.

T.B. Paisley's 'Windmill Notes'

A 'spring folio', binding together loose pages comprising 'Windmill Notes, compiled from various sources by T.B. Paisley'. The folio is divided into the following sections: 'English Windmills. Arranged by Counties' and 'Foreign Windmills' (USA and France). The folio covers the counties listed at 'Place access points below' with brief details of selected post, tower and smock mills there and the date visited.

Paisley, Thomas Brownlee (1916-1980)

Research notebook for 'Chinnor', 'Llandeusant' and 'Saughhall' mills

A repurposed Army field message book (without its cover) labelled, 'Chinnor & (contains all sketches & rough notes of) Llandeusant Mill, Anglesey, Saughall'. The contents include: a narrative description of the post mill at Chinnor, describing its post as, 'the smallest I have ever seen', notes also being made about 'Great Hazeley Mill' (7 pages); detailed notes, drawing and measurements on 'Saughall mill' following an inspection on 4 March 1933 (20 pages); intricate drawings, measurements and notes about Llanddeusant water mill (33 pages).
The notebook also contains detailed notes relating to some sort of printing or photographic process and a pinned memo to 'call at W.H. for fiddle' [a possible reference to Enid Wailes' violin].

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Loose notes, folded together

3 pages of A4 paper, folded around 16 pages of notes taken from two smaller notebooks. Notes taken on mills in Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Wales and Yorkshire, with more detailed notes on a windmill at 'Brill, Bucks' which is also labelled 'Wilford's mill'.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Pocket notebook - 1938

A small notebook measuring approx. 7 cm x 11 cm containing notes on the mills listed at 'Place access points' below, as well as a list of mills located in Rutland.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Pages from a loose-leaf notebook - 1926 to 1929

Assorted brief 'aide memoire' and more detailed notes on a variety of milling matters including: notes taken from books/papers and maps (e.g. 'Dynamics of Windmills' - J.A. Griffiths, the 'English Encyclopedia', 1802, Merian's 'View of London', 1638 and 'The Miller, 1900 and 1916); lists of milling journals, articles, reports and academic papers (including electricity generation); more detailed notes and drawings on the mills listed at 'Place access points' below; a June 1926 typed packing and kit list for a trip to Suffolk and expenses incurred; mileage and logbooks for a trip in June 1928 and again for Wailes' Easter trip to Anglesey in 1929; notes taken from a visit to the Sussex Archives Collection including an account of the relocation of an entire Brighton windmill in 1797; a list of Lancashire mills in working order; and an anecdote about an interaction between a miller and the King of Prussia.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Pocket notebook - 1933 or later

A repurposed pocket diary for October 1933 measuring 6.5 cm x 9 cm containing notes on the mills listed at 'Place access points' below. These include more detailed notes about: the toll board and exterior cleats at Llanddeusant, Anglesey; some drawings under the heading, 'Windmills for the Generation of Electricity, Institute for Research in Agricultural Engineering, University of Oxford'; a reference to 'Parsonage Mill' at Eastbourne 'painted by Hine'; a reference to a book of photos of Eastbourne town hall showing mills in the 1870s and referencing, 'E.L.B. 50 years ago'.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Pocket notebook - Gayton and Ashdon mills

A small pocket notebook (measuring 7.5 cm by 11 cm) containing notes on Gayton, Ashdon and Sh[aw] Mills and notes "per Mr P. Davies" about a Mr Horton of Hythe regarding the use of sack hoist chains by his father and grandfather, W.B and J. Horton, respectively.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Research notebook on various mills, 1932 and 1937

A repurposed Army field message book labelled, "Tide [and] Cider Mills, Woad Cart, Sprowston" containing research notes, drawings and measurements taken from visits in 1932 to the identifiable post and tower mills listed at "Place access points" below.
The notebook also contains: 5 pages of notes extracted from "The Miller's Guide", R.R. Smith, London, William Butcher, 1875; 4 pages of notes following a visit to a cider mill at St Keynes, Cornwall, 2 July 1937; 24 pages of notes and drawings labelled, "Woad Farm, Boston, 2 August 1937"; in the rear pocket, two postcards addressed to Wailes, one of which is from H.W. Dickinson, Honorary Secretary of The Newcomen Society , referencing tide and cider mills.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

Research notebook on various mills, 1932

A repurposed Army field message book labelled, "Various notes should be transcribed. Gt Hazely, Ramsey, Ivinghoe" and comprising research notes, drawings and measurements from visits to the identifiable mills listed at "Place access points" below. Ivinghoe is more commonly known as 'Pitstone Windmill', Wailes noting a date of 1627 carved in part of the interior.

Wailes, Reginald (1901-1986), engineer, known as Rex

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