Wooden Post Mill 1935c.
Warwickshire County Record Office PH855/5
The Beacon was used in the Civil War as a lookout tower
Ron Thorpe
The post mill was built in 1664. It had an open trestle, four common sails, ladder, tailpole and doorway with hooded porch.
It ceased working in about 1912, but was restored in 1933 with public funds by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB).
- On the 26th July 1946 it was blown down in a storm.
Today there is no evidence of the post mill, but a structure known as ‘The Beacon’ is a landmark on the Warwickshire skyline. This may have been built as a tower mill and later used as defensive lookout tower in the English Civil War (1642 -48).
- On 7th January 1952 the Beacon became a Grade II Listed Building.
Comments
Joseph Ashby (of Tysoe) wrote that ‘The beacon on the hill is said to have been built by Sir William Belknap, in the reign of Henry VII. The beacon is said to have been used after the battle of Edge Hill, to forward the news of the battle to Ivinghoe, in Buckinghamshire’ (Warwick Advertiser, 25th November 1893). I was told that more recently it was used as a warrener’s hut: sheltering the man looking after the rabbits kept for food in the nearby warren.
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