The Society have already received funding for a new cap, plus frames for its main sails and fantail, to cosmetically restore the building’s appearance and pave the way for its eventual restoration to full working order.
Bob Anderton, Chair of Holgate Windmill Preservation Society said:
“This is fantastic news, and highlights the confidence which our management of the restoration has given to GrantScape.”
He continued:
“There is still some other work to fund, like decorating the interior walls, fitting new floorboards and fencing the roundabout which the Mill stands on. But our goal of demonstration milling looks set to be achieved in the coming months.”
This major grant from the 2007 Community Heritage Fund, “Windmill and Watermill Challenge” will be sufficient to get the sails working, and grind genuine Holgate flour again, over 70 years after the Mill ceased working in 1933.
The Society have already received funding for a new cap, plus frames for its main sails and fantail, to cosmetically restore the building’s appearance and pave the way for its eventual restoration to full working order.
The Mill’s new sail frames can now be fitted with most of the new shutters that are needed to catch the wind, and turn the giant brake wheel inside the cap. New gear teeth for this wheel, will operate the existing vertical drive shaft to the first floor, where one of the Mill’s four pairs of stones will be restored. New wooden hoppers and chutes will allow grain to be delivered to the stones, and milled into 
flour.
Behind the cap, a working fantail will detect changes to wind direction, and turn the cap on its monorail curb ring, to keep the main sails facing into the wind.
The grant will also fund a sack hoist, which lifts heavy sacks through a series of small upwards opening trapdoors on each floor, to the top of the building. A lightening conducting system will also be fitted.
