The windmills of Norfolk are perhaps the most
iconic of all the county’s landscape features.
Scattered across the county they stand as
sentinels to a distant industrial past in which they
provided wind-driven power for milling and for
draining the marshland.
In the nineteenth
century at their peak there were around 700
working windmills in Norfolk and those that
survive are important for having played their part
in how the Norfolk landscape looks today.
The best known of these survivors are the windmills
of the Norfolk Broads. The engineering of
dykes and associated windpumps helped to drain
the marshland, allowing farming and settlements
to grow. This process began over 250 years ago,
and whilst over the years the drainage mills of
the Broads have gradually been replaced with
more efficient diesel and electric pumps, plenty of
examples of the original mills can still be found in
both working and derelict states.
Whether the mills were originally built to grind
corn or to drain water the basic process of
harnessing wind power through the use of sails
is still the same, and this book showcases a
selection of the photographer’s personal favourite
windmills and drainage mills that can be found in
Norfolk today.
Chris Herring’s photographs are
superb in bringing out the best of the romance of
these beautiful historic structures.
Chris Herring is a Norfolk-based full
time professional freelance photographer
who specialises in photographing
the wonderful and varied
landscape and wildlife of the Norfolk &
Suffolk Broads along with other areas
of East Anglia and elsewhere in the
British Isles.
Chris is quickly gaining a reputation
as one of Norfolk's leading young
photographers concentrating on landscape
and Nature photography of the
Norfolk Broads and countryside
producing bright vibrant pictures that
inspire. This reputation has lead to
Chris regularly having work published
in local and national magazines in
calendars and taking on commissions
for both local companies and large
global brands. Spirit of Norfolk Windmills
is his first book.
Imprint: PiXZ Books. ISBN 978 0 85710 026 9, hardback, 110x155mm, 64 pages. Published May 2010.
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