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Volunteers at Jill Windmill are celebrating the Sussex landmark getting all four of her sweeps back after a difficult year of renovations.

The windmill in Clayton has had only two sweeps attached for most of the past 15 months while maintenance work was carried out.

Having been built in 1821, the mill's revamp started shortly after her 200th birthday celebrations.

“All the work is done every seven years,” said Simon Potter, trustee and founder of the Jack and Jill Windmills Society.

Jill Windmill in Clayton has all four of her sweeps back. Photo: Paul Barber

He explained that two sweeps were taken down in July 2021 and finally hung again this April, with the work being initially delayed so Jill would have all four for her 200th anniversary.

He said: “The downside was that by the time we’d done the work the weather changed so we weren’t in a position to hang them last year. They were on the ground all though the winter.”

Once these two were back up the goal was to take the other two down immediately.

But Simon told the Middy: “Unfortunately, halfway through the day the wind picked up and the crane jib was going to hit our windmill and do more damage so we had to delay it. We didn't actually take this pair down until May 28.”

Jill Windmill in Clayton got all four of her sweeps back on Saturday, October 8. Photo: Mikey Farr

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Simon said the elder of these two sweeps, from 1983, needed repairs on the sail bar and leading edge. The younger one, from 2016, was in good condition.

He said: “Over the course of the last summer we cleaned it all down, got off any loose paint, did repairs and gave everything three coats of paint.”

Then it took around three weeks for them to dry because the lead paint contains a lot of linseed oil.

The team wanted to re-attach the sweeps on the weekend of October 1-2 but their plans were scuppered once again by bad weather.

So they rescheduled the work for Saturday, October 8.

Simon said: “We hired the crane for half a day, came up and everything went beautifully. We're delighted everything’s back.”

He added: “When you put four sweeps up again then the number of visitors and the interest goes up exponentially.”

Simon said that the mill is now in a position to start milling and producing flour again and thanked his team of volunteers.

Visit www.jillwindmill.org.uk.

Jill Windmill gets all four sweeps back: volunteers celebrate as Sussex landmark is fully restored