AN 18th century windmill is set for the latest chapter in its varied history after being put on the market.
The Windmill on Claremont Road, Spittal Tongues, was built in 1782 and is the last of 37 windmills which once stood in the Newcastle area. It is on sale with a guide price of £800,000.
The mill stopped producing flour in 1892 and its sails were removed in 1907. Since then, it has served as the headquarters of the Newcastle Golf Club until it moved to Gosforth in 1907, and then studios for an architect and a clothes designer.
Dr Ross Hobson, who bought the former mill in 2006 for his dental practice and lets out the upper floors to an advertising agency, said the property was a “landmark”.
“Everyone in the area knows what it is and the history behind it. I know it’s been workspaces before, but it would make a great residential property,” said Dr Hobson, who plans to move patients currently attending the surgery to his Heaton Road practice.
“You could have a huge double room up in the windmill itself.”
Kieran Conneely, a chartered surveyor from Swaisland Harris Associates, which is advertising the property, said the windmill had “a long history” in the city.
He added that, while the mill would make an unusual home, “in all probability it will sell as offices.”
“There has been no interest yet from people who might live in it, but it only came onto the market at the weekend,” he said.
The windmill was designed by John Smeaton, an engineer from Wakefield. As well as mills, Smeaton built harbours, bridges and canals, but is best known for the Eddystone Lighthouse. In the mid 1970s the property was bought and restored by the architect Tom Falconer. His conversion created a design studio on the top floor, an architect’s studio on the first floor and space for rent on the ground floor.
Mr Falconer, who had a passion for Corvette cars, having bought his first one from Eric Burdon of the Animals, indulged his hobby for the US marque by buying and selling the “muscle cars” out of the basement of the building.
In 1977, he established Claremont Corvette, taking the company name from his days in Chimney Mill.
In the early 1980s, Mr Falconer sold the building to clothing designer Nigel Cabourn, who used it for his company’s offices and lived next door.
