A photo tour of world windmills 🌍

To me, the classic windmill image is that of an English windmill. Of these, the post mill is the earliest type.

Nutley Pitstone

Later designs included the smock mill (made of wood),

Chailey

and the tower mill (made of brick or stone).

Shirley Thaxted

There are a few unconventional English designs as well...

Chesterton Wimbledon

To most Americans, a windmill probably means a metal windpump. However originally there were windmills much like the English variety, and a reconstruction of an early American post mill is on show at Colonial Williamsburg.

Colonial Williamsburg

Later America also moved to smock and tower mill types. There is a distinctive Cape Cod smock mill style.

Brewster Orleans

In the Caribbean we find mills built to crush sugar cane.

Morgan Lewis, Barbados

There is of course a distinctive Mediterranean windmill style as well

Qala, Malta Xaghra,Malta

Algarve, Portugal

Bodrum, Turkey Bodrum, Turkey

Guatiza, Lanzarote

Consuegra, Spain.