Mill grinding to a halt

Joy and Barry Lee spent ten years and £350,000 restoring Barnham windmill, near Bognor, from a derelict wreck to a popular tea room and landmark.

But for the last nine months they have been involved in a bitter dispute with the landowner of the mill's car park over rent which has now reached deadlock.

The couple are unhappy with the terms of a new five-year lease being offered and have decided to close the Grade II-listed mill to the public on September 2.

They currently lease the gravel car park for £2,600 a year from the adjoining Parsonage Farm, where there are a number of businesses including a farm shop, butcher, cobbler, pet shop and furniture store.

Mr Lee, 55, claims the farm's owner, Peter Reynolds, is now demanding £18,000 a year for the plot.

But Mr Reynolds said he offered the land at "a very reasonable" £4,000 only last week.

Mr Lee said: "There's just no way we can afford a big rent hike. I have been advised it is worth nothing more than £7,500 a year, even if it was fully surfaced.

"My accountant tells me I'll be bankrupt in six months if I continue."

The closure of the mill will mean the loss of five jobs.

Mr Lee said: "My regular customers in the tea room are very sad and it's a shame for the building.

"We will discuss the future of the building with Arun District Council but it will probably mean a change of use to something private.

"We were only granted planning permission for the tea room on the condition that we provide car parking.

"We built this place up from nothing and it has taken us ten years and it has been a real community effort.

"Even now it does not make enough to support my wife and myself and I have another job in construction.

"It's a shame for the whole village because it was a focal point for the community and one of only a few surviving windmills of this type for people to come and look around."

The windmill was built in 1829 and was used up until the Seventies for milling.

Mr Reynolds said: "We offered Mr Lee a five-year lease at about £4,000 a year last week and he said no.

"He wants a 25-year lease but we have been advised by surveyors to never give up that land with a 25-year lease because it would give the tenant too many rights over our land.

"I certainly have no interest in seeing that tea room close and our offer still stands."

An Arun District Council spokesman said: "We would regret the potential loss of the current use and clearly would wish to assist as far as possible in finding a solution to the problem."

It is not the first time Barnham windmill has faced an uncertain future.

The mill has survived everything history has thrown at it since it was first built and is still standing despite storm, war, disease, and depression.

The first mill at Barnham was built in the 1600s and stood for 200 years before a violent storm finally did away with it on October 11, 1827.

But in the true pioneering spirit of the industrial revolution, millwright Henry Martin, from Bognor, decided to replace it two years later.

By the 1840s it was occupied by George and Ann New. But milling took its toll on Mr New, who died aged just 32 in 1843 of tuberculosis brought on by the dusty conditions.

The building went through a succession of owners up to the turn of the century and was improved considerably.

In 1910 Percy Baker, who ran the mill with his father John, joined the Sussex Yeomanry. Percy was killed in Gallipolli during the First World War in 1915. A decade later and all wind power had ceased in favour of steam and eventually a gas engine.

The mill was used by the Army, mainly Canadian troops, during the Second World War as an observation post to alert RAF Tangmere of the approach of enemy aircraft.

The main supporting timbers of the gallery were badly damaged by bombs and were removed 1946.

The millstones turned for the last time in October 1963 and after that roller mills or hammer mills did all further milling of animal feed.

Reginald Reynolds was the last working miller and he retired in March 1985.

In July 1989 it was bought by Vic May, who planned to restore it to a working mill driven by wind. But the project became a victim of the early Nineties recession and Mr May had to sell the mill.

Barry and Joy Lee became the new owners of the mill and attached buildings at the end of 1994.

The Lees were helped by volunteers from the local community who had grown up with the mill and were keen to see it restored.

Christopher Pollington, 43, was one of them.

He said: "There was a plan before Barry took over to turn it into flats but we did not want that so formed a group to help restore the mill.

"I asked Barry if there was anything I could do and he was grateful.

"It was a very important part of my childhood and I think it's a great shame it is going to close to the public.

"I don't know what will happen to it.

"It will probably be made into a residential development, which will be very sad but probably inevitable."