Cleadon, South Tyneside
Cleadon Mill, Cleadon
Last Updated:
27 Jul 2023
Cleadon, South Tyneside
This is a
Windmill
Cleadon Hills Pathway, South Shields NE34 8DZ
Founded in
Current status is
Ruined
Designer (if known):
Grade II Listed, now extant on Cleadon Hills.
'The remains of Cleadon Mill stand in splendid isolation 200 feet above sea level on Cleadon Hill. This early 19th century tower mill built of coursed limestone rubble rises from a low mound contained by a retaining wall also of limestone. The tower stands roofless with cap and sails removed but the stone shell is intact with one or two floor joists still in place.
Thought to have built in the 1820s for the Reverand George Cooper Abbs of Abbs House and Cleadon Hall in Cleadon village. A Cleadon Mill was operation in 1828 when Parson and White's Directory recorded Joseph Watson as a corn miller at Cleadon Mill. Sixteen years later in 1844 Thomas Metcalfe had become miller. By the 1850s it was being worked by the Gibbon family who probably ran the mill until its closure later in the 19th century.
It was used as an artillery base during the first World War.' - Sitelines
Listing Description (if available)
Just above is the second edition of the Ordnance Survey, while further up is the first edition. The difference in the two scenes in nearly 40 years is vague, and is still extremely rural. The real major difference in the area is the development of Cleadon Pumping Station to provide clean water to South Shields and Sunderland. This is as well as the creation of Cleadon Park.
Also by the second edition the Windmill is no longer in use. The mill reputedly stopped operating a couple of decades before this. The old quarry adjacent to the mill is also abandoned.
By 1921, it is only a few years after the old mill was used as an artillery base, presumably to defend South Shields and Sunderland from air attacks during the first world war. It isn't marked on this map as it was revised a year before the war started in 1913.
A group of childrens homes are in use to the south west.
It's difficult to trace any old images of the windmill, but here is a modern photograph of the mill taken by Simon Cotterill on Geograph. The site is now Grade II listed and is still in excellent condition considering its disuse for around a century and a half.
