Maud Foster windmill - again

click photo to enlarge
Today's post is my fourth featuring what I have described as my favourite windmill - the Maud Foster Mill at Boston, Lincolnshire. It's the third taken from approximately the same spot - a bridge over the Maud foster Drain. And, given the way it looks in this photograph you may wonder what all the fuss is about. If so, admire its full beauty and interest in this shot.

I took today's photograph during a morning shopping expedition into Boston. The weather was slightly overcast but the forecasters had promised sun and cloud, a combination I like for compositions in flat regions where a big area of sky is often unavoidable in a landscape shot. When I framed this photograph the cloud was starting to break up and some blue sky was peeping through. Its reflection on the surface of the large, canal-like drain was quite striking. So I made that the real subject of my shot with the windmill an eye-catcher point of focus at the top of the frame. Its a photograph that makes use of the windmill without showing it off in any way.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Beauty and Heckington windmill

click photo to enlarge
It's good that Heckington windmill, the last remaining 8-sail windmill, is undergoing a restoration, and that the buildings around it are being refurbished and remodelled to make the site into a place that can better welcome visitors. It's good too that the rear of the premises will no longer be the eyesore that it has been for many years. And, it's good that the sails that were succumbing to rot have been replaced and are as they should be. All this is a testament to the hard work and selfless effort of the volunteers who have made, and continue to make, it happen.

However, as I view the mill from the A17 when I'm driving past, or when I stop off in Heckington and have a closer view of the building an unfortunate yet inescapable thought always occurs to me - Heckington mill is undoubtedly the least visually pleasing English windmill that I know.

I recently saw, on successive days, Heckington windmill then Boston's Maud Foster windmill. The temporal proximity of my viewings brought home the agreeable elegance of the latter (probably my favourite windmill) and the ungainliness of Heckington. Where Maud Foster has warm, subtly coloured brickwork contrasting with the white of sails, cap, gallery, windows etc and visually interesting subsidiary buildings, Heckington has cold, stark black and white and seems to tower in an awkward way over a disconnected jumble of sheds. I'm sure the redevelopment will improve the latter aspect. However, it is Heckington's main distinguishing feature that I find most displeasing - eight sails. It is simply too many, makes the mill look top heavy and gives the building something of the character of a whirring desk fan - even when it's stationary! By contrast, the five sails of Maud Foster seem to be the ideal number offering visual interest, pleasing angles and less visual weight.  Four sails are very common on English windmills and usually look fine, six sails are less common and that number is beginning to lose the coherence that characterises fewer sails. Five sails are also less frequently seen than four but that number is definitely - to my mind - the optimum: eight is simply far too many!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (30mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Maud Foster, photographic filters and sails

click photo to enlarge
There was a time, from the late 1970s to some time in the 1990s when my Olympus OM1n's lens, usually a 50mm 1.8, but sometimes a 135mm 2.8, was rarely seen without a yellow, orange or red filter screwed on to it. For my personal (as opposed to family) photography, I did a lot of black and white work, and the boost in contrast that this gave to Ilford FP4 suited me fine. I occasionally fitted one to my little Ricoh 500RF but I more usually shot colour - Fujichrome and Ektachrome - with that camera, so a polarising filter suited it best. One of the pleasures of the change from film to digital is the ability to mimic the effect of a one of these filters after a colour shot has been converted to black and white. Today's main photograph shows just that. In this instance the digital equivalent of a yellow filter has been applied. This won't be to the liking of some purists, but I'm very happy with it.

I've photographed the Maud Foster windmill in Boston, Lincolnshire, several times and posted a few of my better shots on the blog. It's named after the big agricultural drain on whose bank it stands, and is one of the most attractive mills that I know - elegant, tall, with lovely brick and interesting ancillary buildings. On this occasion, however, it wasn't its overall appeal that I reflected on; I got to thinking about its sails. It is relatively unusual in having 5, an odd number. An even number of sails was more often favoured, usually 4, 6 or 8, because with this configuration, the argument goes, opposing sails can be removed for repair or maintenance and the windmill retains balance. Now, for reasons that I find hard to put into words I find 5 sails very visually satisfying. Better than the four that is most often seen, and better too than six - which I don't dislike. Definitely an improvement on eight, a number that makes a windmill look like a desk fan - yes Heckington windmill, I'm thinking of you. Perhaps its the anthropomorphic form of the 5-sailer that appeals - a reminder of Leonardo's Vitruvian man. As I say, I can't articulate these likes and dislikes particularly well, any more than I can account for my preferring a two button jacket over a three button version, but it's definitely how I see things.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Maud Foster windmill, Boston

click photo to enlarge

Approximately 300 windmills are known to have existed down the centuries in the area that we now know as Greater London. A few of these date from the period between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, but most were built in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Much of this area was rural in the distant past, and the windmills in the villages that were swallowed up by the capital city's spread would have looked much like the village mills that are sprinkled across eastern and southern England today. However, many of London's windmills were in the heavily built up parts of the city. For example, sixteen windmills are known to have operated in West Ham, and Whitechapel had three. There were even windmills in Mayfair and Marylebone. The information about London's mills comes from written documents, but also from paintings and drawings of the city. Interestingly there are only eight windmills remaining in Greater London today.

Windmills are often thought of as structures of towns, villages and the countryside. In fact, many large towns and cities had them within their boundaries. That's not surprising really because in an urban area the market for a mill's produce is on its doorstep. When I lived in Kingston upon Hull, many years ago, I was always aware of a derelict mill on Holderness Road. Today it is restored and adjoins a pub, the only remaining survivor of over twenty windmills that once graced the city.

Several windmills are also known to have been built in the Lincolnshire town of Boston. Today the only remaining example is the Maud Foster Windmill that stands beside the Maud Foster Drain. And what an example! It is a fine, five-sailed, seven storey, brick tower mill built in 1819. Unlike many Lincolnshire mills it wasn't painted with black bitumen to keep out the rain, and its rustic brickwork blends beautifully with the white paint of the windows, wooden gallery, ogee cap, sails and fan-tail. I passed Maud Foster on a day when the sky was filled with soft, fleeting clouds blown on a wind that was turning the sails to mill the flour that is sold to visitors. The photograph I captured contrasts strongly with one that I took a few months after I settled in Lincolnshire.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Maud Foster Windmill

click photo to enlarge

The Maud Foster windmill stands by the Maud Foster Drain in Boston, Lincolnshire. It was built by the Hull millwrights, Norman & Smithson in 1819, and was located here to grind wheat brought to the mill by barge along the drain. When it was erected it was one of a dozen mills in Boston. Today it is the only working mill, and is open to the public, grinding corn most days. The flour is on sale at the mill shop.

Maud Foster has five sails driving iron gearing, and is 80 feet tall to the top of the tower. This is made of bricks, and, unusually in this part of the world, these are not waterproofed with black tar. Three pairs of stones survive from the original installation. The building operated as a mill until 1942. Boston's councillors preserved the building as a landmark in 1953, and in 1988 it was re-opened, after restoration, as a commercial visitor attraction. The seven floors and its balcony are open to visitors, as are the tea-rooms!

Take away the TV aerials and cars, and the view isn't too unlike what Bostonians would have seen in the nineteenth century. This evening image doesn't show off the mill to the best effect - that will doubtless be a future posting! However, it does show it in context, and supplies an attractive focus for the photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On